RPA IN ACTION IN THE FINANCIAL SECTOR

A renowned professional in artificial intelligence, investment banking, managing consulting and profitability delivery, in the industry for 20+ years and consultations for 10+ Fortune 500 organizations.

- Pavan Kishore Kota Subramanya

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the automation of everything in a process lifecycle, which encompasses bringing in inputs, undertaking processing, and generating required outputs. RPA is today no more the new kid on the block. As per Gartner, global RPA software revenue is projected to reach $1.89 billion in 2021.

Typically, to fulfill a process, there are two activities: 1) Rule-based processing requires a set of rules to be followed to make a decision. To cite an example: if a credit card dispute is less than or equal to $3, you approve it without any further check, as the cost of analysis is more than $3. 2) Cognitive processing requires human judgment using many inputs and complex analysis techniques. To cite an example: marking a credit card dispute as a fraud based on location, IP Address, previous transactions, and other relevant parameters.

100% of rule-based processing can be automated today using RPA. Cognitive processing is facilitated using Machine Learning (ML), and today RPA tools can integrate with ML pipelines to enable cognitive processing. Once a process is fully or partially automated, one or more bots can run the process, depending on the transaction volume at hand. Bots are your new team members and perform tasks based on how they are automated.

RPA can be undertaken at individual desktops/laptops or using server-based software with more robust controls. When done at a desktop/laptop it is generally called Robotic Desktop Automation (RDA). RDA is a great place to start the automation, as it is extremely cost-effective and typically has very good automation features.