The last year and a half have brought spectacular changes in the financial sector, the digitalization process that has begun earlier has gained even more momentum because of the COVID pandemic and changing consumer habits and expectations are also forcing financial institutions to step forward. In addition, there is growing pressure on traditional players in the sector from fintech companies to revolutionize business processes and take customer service to the next level. A good example of this is that Revolut has also become a full-fledged bank in Hungary and offers deposit insurance also, the services of which are already used by more than half a million people in Hungary.

In this market environment, it has become more important than ever for financial institutions to be able to implement their processes efficiently and at a lower cost and to increase the customer experience. Robotic process automation (RPA), which can be used to hand over large numbers of repetitive, monotonous, time-consuming tasks to software robots, can be of great help to banks and insurers in achieving these goals. These solutions can emulate the activities of agents through the interface of existing applications and can easily increase business efficiency and reduce the associated operating costs. Software robots do their job flawlessly and tirelessly, so employees who have previously dealt with these monotonous processes can focus on higher value-added tasks.

RPA can be used effectively for processes that are rule-based, with few exception-handling, and a large number of automatable transactions, and highly standardized incoming data.

“If the right processes are selected during the preliminary survey, the software robot can be up and running in as little as a few weeks, and the return on investment (ROI) can be within a year for a successful project. For example, one of our clients in the financial sector achieved a ROI of more than 300 percent and realized even more benefits by automating a selected process, already in the first year. Thanks to the robot we developed, the average case handling time for that process was reduced to the sixth, and the problems caused by human error were completely gone. As a result, the customer experience has significantly improved, complaints about delays have disappeared, employee motivation has increased with the reduction of monotonous tasks, and the fact that as the process has become completely digital, about 10,000 fewer sheets of paper are printed each year with just that type of case said István Takács, senior advisor and partner of BCA Hungary Kft., the Hungarian expert of RPA.

Software robots can be used effectively in many areas of financial sector companies and other sectors as well, including account management, customer data collection, such as credit transactions, fee repayment processes, sales, and customer service, or even the entry of new colleagues. Accordingly, the demand for such solutions is constantly growing globally. The RPA market grew 11.9 percent last year to $ 1.58 billion, according to Gartner’s analysis, and the research firm predicts an average of over 10 percent growth for this segment each year in its forecast for 2024.

“At BCA, we have been working with RPA since 2016 and since then we have been continuously increasing our team’s expertise across the entire spectrum: from strategic development, through implementation, to operation. We are proud to be a Gold Partner of UiPath since 2020. We believe that the automation of a process can be well implemented if the person doing it is also familiar with the business and technological details. That is why at BCA Hungary, our colleagues work on RPA projects who are at home in both areas,” added István Takács.