Time and again, banks have to adapt and upgrade to the latest technology as per their advancement. This gives them a competitive edge over other banks. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and cloud computing are being widely adopted and implemented, thus resulting in phenomenal improvement in banking operations.
RPA is using pre-designed software or bots to execute easy and repetitive tasks to perform a business process. They mimic humans and do tasks like them. Artificial Intelligence and Screen scraping technology is used for RPA.
Since a lot of back-office operations are repetitive, of high volume, and low risk, RPA is in high demand for such operations. The speed and accuracy of processes are greatly improved compared to processes executed by human employees.
Cloud computing technology has brought a major change in the way the banking industry operates. It facilitates an on-demand solution where data storage, servers, networking, software, and databases can be used by the bank through the internet.
Clouds can be public, private, or hybrid. They can store data in a remote location. It can be retrieved wherever necessary from any place across the globe. This enhances data security. Cloud solutions reduce the costs of implementation of IT infrastructure and its maintenance. Combining both RPA and Cloud computing technologies creates a robust platform for banking operations.
The Benefits of RPA on Cloud
1. Multi-tenancy
Multi-tenancy or shared hosting is a type of software architecture that can serve multiple customers with a single software instance and its supporting framework servers. Software application and database provided by the cloud is shared by all customers. Each customer’s data is isolated from other customers. A small number of bot licenses are utilized to automate multiple processes. Cloud-based RPA is beneficial because the costs of software development and maintenance are shared.
2. Cost optimization
Organizations do not have to invest in physical servers. They don’t need to provide round the clock electricity for working and cooling of servers. Using Cloud-based RPA will cut off the mundane work of the in-house IT team. They can focus on reaching business goals that are unique to the organization. Therefore, high capital investment in the installation of IT infrastructure and the maintenance is avoided and can be used for other strategic decisions. They get higher uptime without heavy expenditure on servers.
3. Scalability
When banks want to expand their IT capabilities, they can just upscale by using RPA cloud solutions according to their requirement. On-demand availability of data storage and expert IT staff for maintenance simplifies the upscaling needs. With only a few clicks away, utilizing RPA cloud service, scalability is possible, which would otherwise be an expensive endeavor.
4. Flexibility
Banks will sometimes have huge spikes in data usage due to high online usage by customers. It could be festivals like Black Friday, Diwali, Christmas, or prime day offering discounts for using a particular bank’s credit card. However, sometimes such requirements cannot be accurately predicted. Websites crash when servers face such a heavy influx of traffic. RPA in the cloud can eliminate such issues. Operations can be scaled up and process modules can be replicated on-demand whenever traffic increases.
5. Quick Results
The full-scale implementation of the RPA on the cloud may take months. However, after implementation, it will immediately provide enhanced speed and accuracy of all the process workflows. Process turnaround time is also reduced. Therefore, RPA based cloud computing has a high Return on Investment (ROI).
6. Easy maintenance
RPA cloud service will free the banks from round the clock, on-premise maintenance costs. It reduces system downtime and cuts down expenses for application upgrades. RPA cloud platform can be monitored continuously from any location worldwide.
7. Improved security
Read-only access is given to bots. They cannot be easily accessed from outside the cloud environment. Top players are well tested and are compliant with international guidelines and standards for better security. They also have the latest generation and upgraded software support compared to the in-house IT support team of banks.
More about RPA and cloud computing
We have seen how RPA based cloud computing technology is beneficial to the banking industry. Banks have realized that it is paramount to choose a vendor who has experience in implementing RPA and Cloud. This technology partner must be ready to identify and solve unexpected challenges faced during the transformation of the regular processes to RPA cloud.
Example:
Automation Anywhere collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to introduce Cloud-native RPA to organizations in India. Its release was announced in May 2020 as the first Cloud-native RPA technology available in our country.
Online banking services saw a sudden spike in demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, organizations must provide optimal services with the least downtime, or without a website or application crashing. They have to accommodate incoming traffic and run operations smoothly with the application of Automation.
Cloud-native RPA will enable the efficient working of process workflows and can scale rapidly on the cloud.
Conclusion
RPA can bring a digital transformation where costs are reduced, efficiency is increased. Cloud computing technology further adds the advantage of low infrastructure cost and easy deployment. It also lessens maintenance costs and any upcoming upgrade costs.
Organizations like banks and Financial institutions must immediately adopt these technologies to perform efficiently and provide a satisfying omnichannel customer experience. This will help them retain existing customers and new customers. Thus, improving the overall business. Cloud-native RPA will revolutionize business operations.
