The financial services sector is central to many fundamental aspects of our lives. From supporting business operations to providing access to capital through loans or peace of mind through insurance, these efforts demand speed and accuracy. Slow and manual work procedures have quickly become obsolete in an economy that never sleeps. The advent of better automation solutions creates many opportunities to modernize and develop a more potent competitive edge. The use of RPA in financial services speaks to these possibilities.

Robotic process automation is a more fundamental approach to streamlining business processes. While software robots built using RPA platforms don’t necessarily exhibit the “intelligence” of AI solutions, they excel at rules-based tasks that are tedious to the average human worker. So, how can RPA be a game-changer in the financial industry?

As we’ll see, many potential areas of impact exist, from anti-fraud measures to customer-facing solutions for guided support. Let’s begin with a quick look at what RPA is, then dive in to how your organization could leverage RPA for positive effects.

What is RPA? What Does It Do?

RPA platforms allow companies to create automated utilities that follow specific rules and interact with software in a human-like manner. For example, you might configure a robot to open a particular website portal, log in, and download the latest invoices uploaded by a supplier. A robot could then place those files into a specific folder or pass them to another robot for additional processing.

RPA applications follow the same rules every time, making them perfect for automating repetitive and everyday tasks. However, RPA can also act as a bridge to other software or between platforms. This versatility is the heart of why RPA is suitable for financial services.

Exploring Use Cases for RPA

Imagination and creativity are often the only limits to discovering applications for RPA within your business. As we’ve noted, it’s ideal for automating tasks that might prove tedious to the point of distraction for human workers. However, RPA also brings robust capabilities for more advanced problem-solving. You can quickly access some of those capabilities to go live with professionally developed solutions available via the Tungsten Marketplace. Here are three ways financial services can deploy RPA for valuable benefits.

Fighting back against fraud

Fraud is a significant source of loss and a constant threat to financial services. Stopping fraud isn’t just a matter of saving money; it can also be a matter of compliance when considering KYC and AML regulations. Detecting fraudulent documents can rely on spotting minor differences or anomalous formatting, which is a challenge even for an experienced human eye. Automation, including RPA tools, can make this process more reliable.

The Tungsten Marketplace features a variety of solutions that are ready to help your organization combat fraud today. Each offers a slightly different approach, making selecting the best method suited to your business needs simpler. These solutions include:

• Fraud Detection using Resistant AI. Featuring over 500 anomaly detectors and a machine-learning model that improves results over time. This solution highlights areas for additional review, making it simpler for humans to see where issues may exist.
• Fortiro Protect. Specially designed for the financial services industry, this solution can check documents in as little as 30 seconds. Fortiro has more than 70 verifications built-in to start with more available to add. RPA solutions connect Fortiro with AI models that learn and evolve to spot fraud better.
• AI Document Fraud Detection with Inscribe AI. Another AI-integrated system, this independent Tungsten Labs solution, can verify the accuracy of documents such as bank statements, checks and other documents that bad actors may fraudulently manipulate.

All these efforts leverage RPA at some point in the process. A simple investment in RPA and automated fraud detection can yield a robust ROI when fraud costs billions annually.

Streamlined loan processing solutions using chatbots

Loans are a vital source of capital for individuals and businesses alike. In many respects, debt is an essential driver of the economy. Making smart decisions about who to approve for a loan is fundamental for a financial service provider’s success. Simultaneously, the process is one of the most defining customer service interactions between the business and the public. A workflow that’s streamlined and easy to use is a must-have. RPA can help. How?

With RPA as part of the back-end of a chatbot solution, you automate a large amount of the loan process with a chatbot during the intake phase. In the Marketplace, the Loan Approval Process Chatbot by Cognigy unifies Tungsten RPA, Capture, TotalAgility and SignDoc for a comprehensive approach to communicating with customers applying for a loan.

This solution uses an AI-powered chat agent and guides users through providing information, submitting paperwork and giving signatures. As the chatbot ingests information, RPA solutions working behind the scenes move and manipulate that data as necessary. The result is a seamless experience for the customer that results in business systems fully populated with the loan application. Users can access the solution 24/7, providing a more convenient experience. Upon process completion, a loan officer can review the information and proceed with the next steps.

Meeting regulatory requirements more easily

Producing the reports necessary for regulatory compliance aspects can be time-consuming. You may need to pull files from multiple systems, manipulate and combine them, or take other actions. Report generation is essential for good governance, up-to-date insights and compliance. However, when it takes a long time, it’s more likely that an individual might accidentally introduce errors into the data.

RPA is easy to configure for report generation. Robots can access the appropriate systems, grab the data, and present it in a more helpful format for your purposes. RPA is also a valuable tool for auditing and logging, as a robot can add to audit trails in real time. The result is greater visibility into your processes and what’s happening behind the scenes.

Using the Tungsten Marketplace for Your Automation Journey

Robotic process automation can provide measurable benefits for many industries and workflows. In financial services, we’ve seen how RPA can build customer support chatbots for many purposes. We’ve also explored how it can help you detect fraud and potentially stop related financial losses. It can even support meeting regulatory demands through rigorous audit logging.

With Tungsten RPA, building robots is simple and accessible. Add support from third-party experts and the solutions they’ve contributed to the Tungsten Marketplace. With chatbots and RPA tools for passing data to AI-powered fraud detection frameworks, there are ready-to-use solutions that can mean you’re ready to go live in a fraction of the time required by in-house development. Explore the Marketplace today to learn more about these solutions and what’s possible with RPA in financial services.