Robotic process automation: Relevant and raring to go

Robots have long been the object of fascination. They have been imagined for over a century, taking on the forms, personalities, and powers of the humans who create them – but now, over 100 years later, have these powerful robots materialized in our everyday lives?

You may be tempted at first thought to answer “no” to this question. Even if you are fortunate enough to own and enjoy the capabilities and convenience of a robot vacuum, the human-like robots of early science fiction have yet to become commonplace – which, we can all agree, is a good thing.

How, then, is robotic technology most relevant in today’s world? The answer is simple: robotic process automation (RPA). What is much more exciting is not just that robotic process automation is already here, but that it is already extraordinarily powerful with the capability to enhance productivity in very specific ways.

Nowhere is that power or relevance more evident than in today’s credit unions. RPA, software that is programmed to perform repetitive tasks, takes specific jobs – the type that trip us up and consume way too much time – and performs them flawlessly and quickly… today. With some use cases, you will see more clearly just how relevant and powerful robotic process automation can be for a credit union like yours.

Indirect Loan Processes

Indirect loans are a great way for credit unions to build their loan portfolios, but they present many challenges. Imagine your hardworking employee manually downloading a TIF file from DDS SSO for each corresponding indirect loan number stored on an Excel spreadsheet. The employee then converts each TIF file to a PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. In all, your employee spends four minutes per loan through this process. That may not sound like a lot, but if your credit union is like most, the vast majority of your auto loan portfolio is in the indirect side of the business – and those minutes add up.

In contrast, robotic process automation simplifies the task by automating this document conversion process. With a specific set of instructions, a “bot” fetches the loan numbers from the Excel file and downloads corresponding TIF files from DDS SSO, storing them in a folder. The bot then uses Adobe to convert all the TIF files in that folder to PDF automatically, doing the work in about half the time and allowing your employee to use those valuable four minutes for something much more important, like serving your members.

NADA Process

In another case, your most loyal employee – the one who is really great at coming up with creative strategies for growth – spends hours trudging through additional manual procedures related to finding trade-in values for vehicle loan accounts. This time, the employee manually matches the criteria for a Minor-Prototype combination in the product selection of an Excel spreadsheet, selects the product, and searches for the same in the NADA site to get the rough trade-in value for each product. The employee then has to input this updated value into the Temenos site. For each record, the employee spends eight minutes.

Here, an RPA bot can step in to perform this entire process easily. In addition to automatically performing all the steps your employee does, it can be automatically configured to update the status of each account in the Excel spreadsheet. In the four minutes the bot requires to perform the task, your employee just had another brilliant idea.

Due Date Change Process

Over in your loan servicing department, your team member trudges through DNA, Formstack, Oracle DB, SharePoint, Excel and Outlook … to estimate a loan’s payoff date and change it in the DNA application. Before anyone knows it, eight minutes of the workday is gone.

In steps the RPA bot to help. Using inbuilt logic, the bot can calculate the anticipated payoff date efficiently, retrieving the entry from Formstack, validating the information within Oracle and logging in to the DNA, where it will update the payoff date and inactivate any active receivables. Once again, the time required is cut in half, with the bot requiring about three to four minutes for the job while the team member heads off to an all-staff meeting.

Bots in action

In each of these scenarios, the bots performed tedious, error-prone tasks perfectly in about half the time, enabling your credit union to save dozens of hours across the organization each week and respond faster to member needs. More importantly, your employees gained back valuable time they can now spend doing what they do best. How relevant is that?

Fortunately, PRA bots are more than relevant. They are here now … ready today to help credit unions like yours work more efficiently, accurately and cost effectively. They are flexible enough to work with any and all systems and cores … and powerful enough to make you wish you had imagined them in action at your credit union much, much sooner.

To learn more about CU NextGen, visit cunextgen.com or call 1-800-311-3928.