To thrive in a post-COVID-19 world, the financial services industry will have to reimagine how they operate. Financial enterprises can leverage the transformative power of automation using DRYiCE Lucy, a solution developed by HCLTech to set their performance trajectory for the years ahead.
The Corona virus pandemic remains a global health challenge that has led to tragic losses of life. The economic challenges emerging in its wake are sending shock waves across the financial services industry. The way consumers interact with businesses is changing, for the foreseeable future.
The financial services industry is already witnessing a run on cash, limited liquidity and a restraining access to consumer credit. This could increase the likelihood of default in consumer lending and an increase in delinquency rates, leading to revamping of the account servicing strategies.
Right now, the most significant impact on financial industry is touted to be operational. The retail banks everywhere are assessing ways to minimize the impact of COVID-19 in their daily operations, by implementing work from home protocols and testing new business continuity plans by investing heavily in digital transformation to deal with this crisis.
As per a recent McKinsey report, we have moved five years forward in the business digital adoption in a short span of eight weeks since the onset of the Corona virus outbreak. Within a matter of weeks, banks transitioned to remote sales and launched digital solutions for flexible payment of loans, mortgages, and customer experience.
Automation in financial industry is no more about cost reduction. Financial organizations have started realizing and tapping into the benefits of automation including the speed to market, user experience, agility and improvement in customer service and reduction in the error rates.
McKinsey found online banking in Europe to have increased to 20% as a result of COVID-19. In such times, automation which leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning will provide more value to financial enterprises, making them fitter for the tough times. MarketWatch predicts that over the next three years, automation in the financial services industry will drive a cost reduction of more than 20% leading to an increase in revenue of 10%.
For the financial industry to reap the benefits of automation, they will have to let go of legacy infrastructure and processes. The speed and accuracy in operational productivity at a reduced cost and with greater efficiency makes financial services automation critical for business procedures.
Automation will enable financial companies to build bots that can automate critical business procedures that are repetitive in nature for greater accuracy. For the financial service leaders, the time saved by automation can be reallocated to higher-value efforts to improve customer service and to focus on the growth of the organization.
Let’s explore the disciplines within the financial services where automation can be applied:
Digital migration in retail banks – The airborne nature of the spread of the pandemic has forced retail banks to reduce footfall to their physical branches. They have already started setting up procedures and strategies for a completely digital environment. The customer onboarding, sales and support will be handled through app, web, and email channels. Automation using machine learning can establish a mechanism to support this massive digital migration for banking activities. After the opportunities are identified, automation can be deployed to increase efficiency.
Personalization - Financial businesses will have to prioritize customer experiences so that the users remain loyal to digital platforms. Hyper-personalization can be utilized to direct the customers to maintain their accounts. Additionally, by employing advanced analytics, it is possible to remove friction across sales and service journeys.
Automated AI solutions can weed through data to uncover actionable insights on the ever-changing customer behavior.
Automation of critical processes – With the majority of operation teams working from home and simultaneously having to conduct business activities for customers, financial enterprises will have to perform digital analytics. This assessment will include data security, risk monitoring, and alerting in times of information security threats which can be automated.
A perfect example of automation implemented for financial enterprise organizations is DRYiCE Lucy by HCLTech. The AI-enabled cognitive virtual assistant is laying the automation foundation for digital enterprises. To mimic human interactions, Lucy can interact and communicate in the human voice and chat. By leveraging NLP (natural language processing) and ML (machine learning) it interacts with consumers in the way they prefer consuming information, helping financial enterprise reduce human error and improve productivity. 600+ businesses and IT organizations have enabled powerful integrations with the cognitive console by virtual assistant Lucy.
During the current times when financial operations are more digital than ever, organizations have reported an uptick in the consumer queries. The AI-driven automation by Lucy, developed by HCLTech is the answer to deliver real-time and relevant answers to questions by users with the help of a virtual assistant.
The AI-enabled virtual assistant Lucy is an example of the transformative power of automation in the financial services industry post-COVID-19 and beyond. Its ability to scale, the Omni channel capability and contextual switching during the conversation make it one of the most resilient and intelligent virtual assistant in the market.
