Document automation in KYC process

Industries like finance and banking deal with a pile of paper documents of customers that they have to process daily for specific tasks, like KYC documentation.

Financial institutions usually spend an average of USD 150 million yearly on KYC operations. But many struggles with inefficient and ineffective delivery centers. And non-compliance fines are on the rise. Given the present crisis, automated document processing leverages AI and ML capabilities, along with OCR and Computer Vision technology, to convert paper-intensive industries into digital enterprises. As mentioned, the banking and financial industry is one of the ideal candidates alongside healthcare and others, where extensive documentation dominates the core operations.

Automated document processing – definition and purpose

Document processing automation captures various granular components present in a document with the help of tech-enabled features that don’t require human intervention. It converts manual files and analog data into a machine-readable digital format and is ready for integration into day-to-day business processes. With the help of automated document processing software, enterprises can digitally replicate the paper document’s structure, layout, text, and images, reducing time and labor-intensive recurring workflows, alongside manual errors that might prove costly.

Automated document processing benefits

Intelligent document processing benefits enterprises immensely in terms of increased productivity, faster document retrieval, more accuracy, reduced manual efforts, and many more.

Increases team productivity: When teams spend less time on repetitive long-haul tasks, they can contribute more to value-added services. This is because they are free from mundane workflows and perform other tasks more efficiently, resulting in improved productivity.

Increases process efficiency: Document automation can make processes more efficient by omitting time and error-intensive factors. Document processing takes place in seconds, reducing execution time and increasing process efficiency.

Eliminates manual effort: Handling bulk documents is a labor-intensive task that consumes a lot of productive hours of the team. With adequate software solutions powered by AI and automation, manual efforts can be eliminated from the process.

Enhances data accuracy: Documenting data or extracting granular insights are subjected to errors when addressed manually, which can impair effective decision-making. Automated document processing can improve data extraction accuracy and presents the actual scenario.

Automates document classification: The ability to auto-classify documents into distinct categories helps enterprises to organize business documents. Moreover, the whole process can take place without human interference.

Enhances compliance: Organizations can easily streamline compliance processes by auto-extraction and classification of document data as per predefined criteria. As a result, compliance-related information is accurately and consistently captured minus the labor and time associated with them.

Processes more significant documents faster: Unlike manual tasks, automation can process large volumes of documents in comparatively lesser time, thus, saving valuable time and labor.

Elevates customer satisfaction: Expert data extraction from bulk documents allows businesses to make data-driven decisions to deliver enhanced customer service and experience.

Improves data security: By eliminating human involvement from paper-intensive processes, intelligent document processing software safeguards the company’s confidential data. It restricts unauthorized access and ensures the utmost security of enterprise documents.

Creates a flexible organization: By allowing custom workflows and document management systems, document automation can increase document processing flexibility for an organization. The capacity to drive paper-intensive processes effortlessly improves a firm’s agility and flexibility.

Importance of document processing in the banking sector

Banks and financial institutions handle sensitive client data on a daily basis. Any security breach can result in data theft, placing the organization in serious trouble. Hence, protecting private and corporate financial and other sensitive information should be a top priority. Banks are always vulnerable to such threats, but many of those threats can be handled with an effective document management system following a robust security measure.

A paperless solution helps banks and financial institutions de-clutter their offices and keeps a trustable backup of important information in a protective safe. A digital copy is better protected from damage, loss, or theft. And such documents can be easily accessed as and when needed without having to spend hours shuffling through dust-covered physical files.

Automated document processing can help banks and other institutions easily take care of all the above-mentioned requirements. In addition, such intelligent platforms are secure, user-friendly, effective, and cost-efficient. This means you need fewer human hands doing the same tasks repeatedly.

Document automation in banking – a few use cases

Banks are embracing new-age technology solutions to redefine customer interactions, improve data storage and processing, and increase access and connectivity. Among such high-end solutions, automated document processing has proved to be a blessing in disguise. First and foremost, document automation uncovers previously unrealized opportunities by improving the process of managing documents and generating insights from vast troves of data.

Since the financial sector is document-heavy, automation and AI can play a significant role beyond processing and digitizing enterprise documents. Here are a few use cases for automated document processing to consider:

KYC, or know-your-customer, is a vital banking process for onboarding new customers. It involves handling customer identification, financial statements, and other related personal documents and verifying their authenticity and eligibility. KYC is a long-haul but essential process and covers everything – from validating their credit score to auto-integrating their data with enterprise systems. Since a lot of paperwork is involved, there is a high chance of untimely delays and human errors. That makes the KYC process a perfect candidate for improvement with automated document processing.

Challenges of KYC processes

As mentioned, the document and the data-heavy KYC process are challenging for banking employees. Time is an essential factor that can make or break a customer’s banking experience. And a typical KYC client refresh consumes 1200 minutes for a financial institution. But client profiling and validating consume more than a few hundred minutes. The process is not cost-efficient or capital-intensive. Customer outreach and data acquisition are two crucial areas that add to the processing delay; if not executed carefully can increase the risk of fraudulent activities. Therefore, the common challenges surrounding the KYC process could be summed up in the following points:

How automated document processing is enabling the transformation of KYC workflows?

Since documents are the critical, challenging factor giving rise to all issues surrounding KYC, automation can only prove to be the best bet for banking employees. Automated document processing takes the paper factor out of the process, creating a streamlined, digital workflow that is convenient for customers and bank staff.

The lengthy task of gathering and validating customer information is cut short by many hours, relieving all of the long-haul burden and addressing operational costs associated with it. Moreover, collecting, entering, and verifying data is a recurring task taking place every time a new customer is onboarded. As a result, Back-and-forth communication is no longer required, and customer queries are addressed 24 x7. So unnecessary delays are removed, and customers are kept engaged, which, in turn, reduces onboarding abandon rates.

Moreover, geographical constraints will also not pose a challenge in KYC automation. Further, customers today prefer digital over in-person interactions. Carrying out due diligence under the changed circumstances will not pose any issue with automated document processing. Bank staff can verify the authenticity of documents submitted instantly and more accurately.

Automated document processing has effectively helped enterprises handle the cumbersome document management task. Document-intensive industries like banking and finance stand to benefit from the intelligent solution. Automating KYC documents is just one example but a critical use case. There are other areas where document automation can make a difference, a few of which are mentioned above. Powered by AI capabilities, these platforms can help enterprises to realize their objective of digital transformation at scale effortlessly.