Optimising Service in Banking: Building the backbone for financial service operations

It is no secret that the banking industry has been rapidly digitising for several years now. According to the European Central Bank’s 2023 Banking Supervision report, 61 percent of banks are now embedding their digital transformation budget into their overall IT budget, with approximately 22 percent of their IT budget dedicated towards digitalisation.

Intelligent automation (IA) and low code have been key talking points for financial services tech decisionmakers over the past decade. But many banks still have not yet embedded these technologies in their processes to great effect. So, how can both intelligent automation and low code help to build the service backbone to optimise self-service banking and move towards the autonomous bank? 

What is IA and low code, really?  

According to EY, IA “refers to the integration of robotics with multiple components from different emerging technologies.” This widens the scope of tasks and processes which can be automated and can streamline and scale decision-making processes for businesses. It allows organisations to automate low-level tasks, which could be as simple as automating data entry or data quality checking processes. This enables employees to free up their time to focus on higher level tasks which need more skill. Altogether, IA works to free up business resources and improve operational efficiency.  

Low code enables anyone in an organisation to essentially be a developer. A low code platform enables its users to build and deploy software platforms without having had any or very minimal coding experience, those who are citizen developers. This is done through drag-and-drop functionality and visual interfaces, making coding much simpler. And increased adoption of low-code is accelerating, with recent research from Gartner predicting developers outside of IT departments will account for at least 80 percent of the user base for low-code development tools by 2026. In this way, low code can empower all in an organisation to work together to lower the burden and backlog on IT departments, allowing employees to take more ownership over business processes and workflows.  

The intelligence of IA 

As the banking industry continues to evolve, there is continued pressure on employees through increasing customer service and volume demands, let alone a multiplicity of systems to deal with. A large part of the solution lies in IA which allows banks to automate processes that cut across channels or backend systems of record, in order to enhance accuracy and productivity, all whilst reducing errors. IA works to drive operational efficiency for financial institutions as a result.  

IA can drive internal banking procedures, such as processing loans and mortgages, to reduce handling time, but also ensure quality and accuracy in areas such as adherence to lending credit policies. For employees, multiple customer management systems can be integrated, which makes it easier for customer data retrieval. This leads to improved efficiency and seamless backend processes, as well as quicker customer service times. 

There is also no need for financial service institutions to overhaul their entire backend technology systems in order for IA systems to work as both can be connected together. Modern systems can integrate across core systems of record, either using data as needed or completing processes that are difficult to process today, or both. Effectively functionality can be added or ‘hollowed out’ from other systems, reducing reliance on them.  

And what about low code? 

Low code is a revolutionary development framework which offers increased speed and ease of use for employees. With low code, applications can be created in hours, rather than taking months or even years as would have been the case with traditional coding methods. Organisations are also waking up to the potential of low-code with recent research highlighting how businesses are looking to build up to 70 percent of their new applications using low code or no-code platforms by 2025, up from 25 percent in 2020. 

Rather, low code allows everyone in the organisation, no matter their experience level, to get involved in updating backend processes and to create low code powered applications. Through simple drag and drop functionality and visual interfaces, a low code development platform allows pre-existing code to be easily manoeuvred to build applications. This lessens the burden and backlog on IT teams, allowing them to dedicate their time for more complex use cases. This can all be done with guard rails and controls built in, to ensure effective testing and release management. 

As a broader set of employees are able to make real-time and necessary updates to platforms, both staff and end customer experience will become more efficient. I’ve seen examples of private bankers and relationship managers able to update Natural Language Processing models with client specific words, increasing accuracy and improving processing and work routing. In another organisation, over 50 applications have been built by teams across operations and product, still working with their colleagues in technology, but more empowered and better set up to work on the applications independently or in parallel. A Forrester report has cited that 90 percent of IT leaders found the flexibility of a low code platform enables them to significantly improve customer experience, compared to traditional development platforms.  

Creating a service backbone with IA and low code 

IA and low code both drive operational, process efficiency, and enable more accurate and faster customer service. To ensure a strong service backbone for financial service operations, they should integrate IA and low code within their operations to streamline processes. This is worth the investment as in the long run processes become easier to adapt and change, more resilient to shocks and customer service is greatly improved. IA and low code are here to stay and will become even more necessary in the years to come for financial service operators to do business.