Accelerate work, save money, tighten security, and more by turning to digital workers

Today’s interest rates are the highest they’ve been in over two decades. That means most banks are bringing in more profit than usual. One great way to use that cash? Investing in efficiency-boosting technology such as automation. That can help keep margins healthy if and when rates return to normal. In fact, nearly 85% of financial institutions are already using automation in banking to solve a variety of problems. Even more are hot on their heels.

But what exactly does that automation look like? How does it work? And what advantages does it confer? Let’s dive in to find out the what, how, and why of bank automation.

What is automation banking?

Automation in banking refers to replacing manual processes with ones that require minimal or no human input. Basically, it means moving simple, repetitive tasks off the plates of human workers to help them do their jobs faster, easier, and with greater accuracy.

Robotic process automation (RPA)

The earliest banking automation solutions largely fell under the umbrella of robotic process automation (RPA). With RPA, bots do one specific thing over and over, making them well-suited to important, but highly repetitive, tasks.

Let’s say you want to prevent fraud in digital banking. If a bot is programmed with the criteria that indicate fraud, it can review transactions for those criteria in a fraction of the time it would take a human to do the same thing. It can do that job constantly, without tiring, at all hours of the day, with the same level of attention every time.

Intelligent automation (IA)

In more recent years, automation in banking has expanded on RPA’s base with artificial intelligence (AI). By tapping into these cognitive technologies, you can create bots that perform more complex tasks or automate entire processes. This is known as intelligent automation (IA).

One way IA takes automation in banking to new heights is through document processing. Say a customer submits a paper form. If a high-quality scanner digitizes that form, integrated software can identify its key information. It can extract those dates, names, account numbers, and more — even from an unstructured document. Finally, it can route that information to the proper storage location. It does all this much faster and more accurately than a human.

Benefits of banking automation solutions

• Increased efficiency: Traditional banking requires many manual processes, from mailing checks to data entry. By automating these tasks each one can receive a significant speed boost. At the same time, human workers suddenly have more time in their days for creative, productive work.
• Greater accuracy: Doing the same thing over and over can push the human brain into autopilot. Once there, it's easy for it to lose focus and make a mistake. Automations eliminate that risk, allowing for consistently accurate data.
• Reduced spending: Automating repetitive tasks lets you do more with less, which in turn can save on working hours. Fewer employees can get the same amount of work done. That effect is compounded by the accuracy of the data — employees can spend less time correcting errors.
• Improved employee experience: 89% of U.S. employees among 773 automation users are more satisfied with their jobs as a result of automation used in the workplace. Not only are they freed from tedious tasks such as data entry, but they also get to spend more time on creative, fulfilling work that drives measurable results.
• Tighter security: Losses from fraud scams and bank fraud schemes accounted for more than $485 billion globally in 2023. Rather than make humans manually check every transaction and account for potential fraud, automations can quickly screen them and flag abnormalities, potentially saving millions of dollars.
• Higher customer satisfaction: Where humans need time for rest and relaxation, bots can operate 24/7. That means customers can do business on whatever schedule they prefer.

Use cases for automation in banking

One of automation in banking’s great strengths is its versatility. Almost every aspect of the business can improve with automation:

• Customer service: Chatbots that use natural language processing (NLP) can facilitate customer-guided service. They can answer common questions, execute simple transactions, and ask customers key questions. The info from those questions can lead to more efficient support routing and faster resolutions.
• Customer onboarding: Intelligent forms can take data from one location and copy it to another. That eliminates redundant questions that might frustrate customers and reduces the risk of human error. It can also lead to faster and smoother account creation.
• Account management: Automated processes can instantly process deposits, withdrawals, and other transactions. They can also track the changes in values across all data sources. That accelerates transactions, keeps data consistent, minimizes errors in processing, and powers round-the-clock banking.
• Fraud detection: Using a simple checklist, bots can scrutinize heaps of transactions for behavior that might indicate fraud. In doing so, they can help spot, flag, and escalate abnormalities in time to prevent illegal activity. They can also store an audit trail of their processes to maintain transparency.
• Loan approval: Where human-driven loan approval can be slow and prone to bias, automated approval can power data-driven decisions in a fraction of the time.
• Analytics: IA can collect data from throughout your systems, centralize it, and generate reports that highlight opportunities for performance improvements based on real-time data.
• Compliance reporting: Automations can compile and generate compliance reports that can help you lock down vulnerabilities before they're exploited. These reports can also help accelerate compliance audits.

Our recommendation: RICOH fi-7600

As valuable as automation in banking can be, it requires high-quality data to maximize its potential. If paper still plays a part in your processes, you’ll need a powerful document scanner that produces crystal-clear images. That makes it easier for bots to find the data they need on the page, powering greater efficiency.

Those in the market for a document scanner have no shortage of options. We take great pride in having spent the last 50+ years researching, designing, and developing some of the most advanced and powerful electronics in the world, including our professional grade fi and SP series of scanners.

Built to purpose for the most demanding document handling jobs, fi and SP scanners are capable of processing tens of thousands of pages per day at the highest levels of accuracy. Their intuitive integration capabilities with all existing work suites minimize time-to-value for businesses looking to invest in tools that will pay dividends for years to come.

Among mid-office scanners, the fi-7600 stands out thanks to versatile paper handling, a 300-page hopper, and blistering 100-duplex-scans-per-minute speeds. Its dual-control panel lets workers use it from either side, making it a flexible piece of office equipment. Plus, it includes PaperStream software that uses AI to enhance your scan clarity and power optical character recognition (OCR). Click here to learn more or shop the rest of our production scanner line.

Note: Information and external links are provided for your convenience and for educational purposes only, and shall not be construed, or relied upon, as legal or financial advice. PFU America, Inc. makes no representations about the contents, features, or specifications on such third-party sites, software, and/or offerings (collectively “Third-Party Offerings”) and shall not be responsible for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of such Third-Party Offerings. Please consult with a licensed professional regarding your specific situation as regulations may be subject to change.