Rupal Karia, GM – UKI & MEA at Celonis
Banks face ever-changing pressures, from evolving customer expectations to new regulations and the rise in financial crime. Forward-thinking organisations in the sector must harness technology to respond and, crucially, utilise their own business data to adapt continuously to challenges. The key to this is the use of Process Intelligence, which is helping banks move beyond digital transformation towards continuous improvement.
Achieving a holistic view
Process Intelligence offers companies in the banking sector an overview of how process data travels through their business. Using process mining technology, it captures data from existing internal systems and turns that data into a living, system-agnostic digital twin of an organisation’s end-to-end processes. Process Intelligence lets institutions break down the ‘silos’ and bridge the ‘gaps’ between systems and departments. These silos and gaps can emerge more readily in legacy banks as they manage the integration of new systems into their existing tech portfolios. This process is difficult and can lead to unnecessary touch points and inefficient handovers between teams. How many times have you gone to a bank and said, “I want to apply for credit” and the first thing you are asked for is documentation they already have?
Not only does Process Intelligence help to solve this, it also helps banks keep pace with changing customer expectations, as well as with technology and regulatory evolution in the sector. For banks, there are four key areas where Process Intelligence, paired with artificial intelligence (AI), is delivering results. This includes predicting future trends, enhancing anti-fraud measures, enhancing customer service through instant, personalised responses and making lending practices more inclusive. Each of these areas can be transformed continuously rather than merely undergoing a one-time business transformation.
Seeing the future
AI is revolutionising the way predictive analytics are used in financial services, processing huge amounts of historical and current data to unearth trends that no single human analyst could discern. By using machine learning on historical data, AI can predict everything from consumer spending habits to expected credit delinquency, with systems continuously learning from new data inputs.
Process Intelligence is the perfect fuel for predictive analytics, providing the process data and business context unique to each organisation required to make informed predictions. By ‘looking inside’ the business to see how complex, interconnected processes actually run, management teams can confidently rely on predictive analytics.
Fighting fraud
For banks, fraud is not just a persistent problem, it is a growing one, with global banking fraud predicted to hit $48 billion by the end of the decade, according to Juniper Research, a rise of 153% on last year’s figure. AI is helping banks stay abreast of this surge in crime by detecting anomalies which identify significant deviations from normal behaviour. Furthermore, with Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) fraud detection systems can now handle unstructured data, such as emails or bank correspondence, making them more useful in spotting fraud before it causes harm.
AI however is only as good as the input it receives. Process Intelligence gives AI the input it needs to succeed. It helps AI understand how processes run across multiple systems, the roles involved in each step of the process, and the relevant business rules. This empowers banks to ‘zoom in’ on the unmistakable signs of fraud. By continuously learning from data derived directly from an organisation’s own systems, fraud detection systems can pinpoint irregularities faster and deal with fraud more efficiently.
Talking the talk
The benefits of Process Intelligence also extend beyond the realms of predictive analytics and fraud detection. The technology offers transformative change in the banking sector when it comes to delivering customer service. It offers chatbots the process data and context needed to deliver personalised responses for each and every customer. Furthermore, chatbots can handle more complex queries, meaning employees can focus on more important strategic tasks.
Chatbots, powered by machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), currently handle a broad scope of customer requests in the industry, dealing with everything from balance checks to processing transactions. By making chatbots more bespoke and strategic, Process Intelligence will have a wide-reaching impact and can ultimately cut waiting times for customers. When digitally transforming, banks need to connect the dots, otherwise the value in between processes is not captured. With Process Intelligence banks can now look at how people, processes and technology interact with each other in all domains, such as customer and sales teams, allowing them to provide faster digital banking experiences or adapt quickly to new regulations.
A fairer way
For decades, credit scoring has operated the same way, relying on very strict, limited data, often as simple as where someone lives and their borrowing history. This has historically meant that certain people are excluded from the system for not having ‘enough’ formal credit history. But Process Intelligence and AI work together to make credit more inclusive, with machine learning analysing alternative data sources such as payment histories for utilities or mobile phones, meaning that lenders can evaluate creditworthiness in a more realistic and transparent way.
Generative AI and LLMs are already allowing new methods of credit scoring using unstructured data, such as paper bills or emails, and are tailored more closely to specific lending tasks. This has meant that previously underserved populations can access the credit they need – and Process Intelligence holds the potential to extend this still further, providing the process data and context to support decision-making and helping to expand access to credit.
Towards continuous improvement
For banks in an increasingly digital sector, it’s essential that business software is fed with the ‘real’ data from their businesses. The benefits of Process Intelligence are wide-reaching and light the way for banks to gain a holistic view of their operations which wasn’t previously possible. From fraud detection, to customer service and credit scoring, the opportunities are tangible and offer banks the game-changing technology they need to navigate the multitude of pressures facing the sector.
