Accuracy is paramount in the banking and finance industry, where numbers and sensitive issues such as client funds are involved. Due to the potential for human error, many banks and financial companies are turning to automation to improve accuracy and credibility with clients. Automation is not only useful for crunching numbers but also for extracting data attributes related to corporate action announcements.
J.P. Morgan’s Head of Intelligent Automation and Project Management Office, Frank Chen, discussed the issue of automating the process of extracting data attributes during the UiPath Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit 2022. The lack of industry standards mandating a consistent document format makes this process a tough challenge for traditional optical character recognition (OCR) tools.
J.P. Morgan’s solution was a three-pronged approach built on multiple UiPath products. The first step was using UiPath Studio to create a robot to visit the exchange website and pull the relevant action notices. Next, UiPath Document Understanding would extract the relevant attributes and populate a template with the required information. The final component, UiPath Action Center, formalized a review process that would give users and business developers confidence that the models they built were performing as needed.
Chen recommends three things for banks starting with automation. Firstly, start small and ensure a successful proof of concept project before expanding. Secondly, research multiple options to find the one that works best in your situation. Lastly, expand automation’s value by reusing existing automation components and involving other stakeholders.
The banking industry has already automated many repetitive, rules-based tasks. Now, companies are looking to automate variable processes that mix rules-based tasks with more fluid, unstructured data. AI and automation can take over a growing share of the workload, especially in the document-intensive industry with no overarching format standards. Finally, banks need to monitor and respond to unstructured data from various channels to deliver exceptional customer experiences, and AI can help better manage this data.
