Covid 19, the global pandemic is sending shockwaves throughout the financial markets, the elasticity of consumer goods and is significantly affecting the way we engage in normal business activities in the future. As the virus is rapidly spreading across the world, borrowers and businesses are facing job losses, slowed sales, and a fall in profit. Financial institutions are required to evaluate, react and plan imminent and future actions to address the major implications of the pandemic crisis.
As we are experiencing an economic fallout, retail banks are finding themselves juggling some key priorities that require concrete steps for repositioning as well as recalibrating for the future. Customers who are increasingly cautious about spending their time in public spaces will need a way to conduct their banking transactions by adhering the social distancing rule. By implementing fully digitalised and remote customer transactions, banks can ensure that both day- to day and exceptional processes are carried out with limited disruption.
Challenges facing by traditional banks during the pandemic
As the coronavirus has caused a turmoil for many people who are grappling with issues such as job loss and reduced of income, many are turning to their bank for financial assistance in terms of loan payment referrals. Although amending the loans condition and altering negotiated payments are nothing new to the banks, having to do so in a broader scale is something they have never faced before. According to statistics, in May 2020, 6% of mortgage clients and 13% of small businesses have demanded to postpone their loan repayments. Those loans amounted to more than $ 150billion.
In the pre-Covid times, banks have normally handled requests for loan payment relief on a case- by- case basis. Circumstances of each customer were scrutinized carefully before any decision were taken. However, due to this virus, banks are finding that the systems and workflows that have worked in the past are unable to cope with. Manual processing and long approval chains will obviously cannot keep up with the customer demand. For instance, a Columbian bank needed to streamline its collections process and reduce the risks associated with to the Covid 19 crisis.
The role of Automation
Industry 4.0 emphasizes the importance of automation for rapid development and deployment of products in the banking and financial sectors. Automation and AI have redefined work and made it possible for digital workforce to free up their time for more creative and innovative tasks. Digital revolution has created a paradigm shift in the banking operations as well as delivering services to the clients through digital mediums. Automation technologies such as RPA and AI can enable the banking organisation to deliver smarter automations and address the challenges that they are facing during this pandemic crisis.
As such, with the current situation, with the rapid spread of the coronavirus, RPA platforms can streamline workflows and automate many steps that was traditionally completed by humans. In addition, customers today, are expecting a high degree of convenience and personalisation out of their financial service experience. Hence, virtual banking assistants can help minimise the dependency on human representatives, helping them reduce the time spent on generic customer queries and enhancing the level of productivity. Especially amid this crisis, when most of the banks are understaffed, digital workforce can really be helpful in reducing the work load by instantaneously addressing to customer queries and therefore enhancing customer satisfaction levels.
According to a multinational investment Bank in Switzerland, its finance function, specifically cash management in times of lower customer demand have become significantly more important with this pandemic. There is also an even greater need to respond quickly to market sentiment and to ensure that products and services are applicable to customers in the current situation. Automation is considered as one of the key pillars in helping business continuity during this crisis.
These challenging times, will fundamentally change the nature of the work we have known and experienced before. The banking sector can proactively adapt to changes, react and thrive to move on. Leveraging automation technologies such RPA and AI, will give banks a better chance of streamlining business operations and thus enhancing the overall customer experience.
Partner with Anglo.AI
Anglo.AI is known for being keen on innovation and has always been up-to-date with the latest trends. With its Expertise, Anglo.AI provides tailor made RPA solution for different sectors. Having all the required resources, Anglo.AI is able to provide proper guidance to its clients throughout the whole process workflow. Our company partnered with Automation Anywhere, and WorkFusion for Robotics Process Automation. We hope that our contribution can help companies bring faster response to prevention and treatment now and in the future.
