ST. PETE BEACH, Fla.–The use cases for moving to robotic process automation (RPA) was made to credit unions here as a win/win/win for members, employees and the credit union.
Speaking to the African American Credit Union Coalition annual conference,
Jason Nixon and Manish Pandey, both with Fiserv’s System Integration Services, polled their audience for how many were familiar with RPA. In a room of approximately 50 people, only a handful of hands were raised.
Yet as Pandey noted on several occasions during the session titled, “Combine the Capacity of Your new Digital Workforce While Empowering Your People,” RPA is one of the fastest-growing solutions being embraced by financial institutions.
The Effects from Netflix
“It’s been one of those technologies that has really profoundly been adopted in the financial services world in the last two years,” said Pandey. “Things changed in our world because of Covid. Before Covid an employee could walk over to someone and tap them on the shoulder and get things done. They didn’t need information digitized and everything electronically available. But in remote environment, employees and members got exposed to their experience with Netflix. The TV would remember where you started and stopped on various devices. (Employees and members) want the same experience from their financial services provider, too.
“If they are demanding that kind of experience from you and your services not automated, if there is a manual intervention, what kind of experience provided to members?” he continued.
RPA is delivering results for banks and credit unions across the enterprise, said Pandey, as FIs eliminate all manual intervention. “Think about the friction you have removed, the chances of errors you have removed, and the efficiencies you have introduced,” he said.
Member Onboarding
As an example, Pandey cited member onboarding.
“How much manual intervention do you have today? It’s one of the most adopted use cases,” he said. “We have a lot of friction here and we want to expedite the entire process. There are bots that will automate the entire process.”
Pandey added that in many cases RPA is able to address manual function across multiple functions. “RPA enables seamless member experiences across interactions and channels at any time,” he said.
RPA offers another benefit, he said, and that is with employees.
The Challenge
“The challenge with employees is they have to go to different systems to service members effectively,” Pandey said. “That is so many log-ins, so much lost time, and that’s friction. Are we really empowering employees to serve members effectively? If you are not and you have friction and employees are not enabled, then they cannot be effective in front of your members.”
Pandey outlined what he said are the top 10 credit union use cases for RPA below, but he added, “There are many more.”
Pandey cautioned that without a proper approach to RPA, however, there will be “setbacks” and disappointing results. Instead, there must be a “roadmap” for implementation and expectations, he said, adding there must also be a “champion” within any organization or RPA. He outlined the steps to take in the slide below.