Coronavirus Is Fast-Tracking Digital Transformation in Financial Institutions
Since the start of 2020, coronavirus has taken over lives, disrupting the normality of businesses and society worldwide. A lot of businesses have cut back their operations as a first instinct amid this pandemic; however, experts and CIOs are pointing out that businesses that choose to invest in digital transformation instead will position themselves better after the pandemic.
As an effort to contain this virus, most governments now mandate businesses to allow employees to work from home. Technology companies that offer cloud meeting and team collaboration tools have seen a huge increase of their service usage during this time, many of these companies are now offering extended free-trial period or lower fees to support organizations transitioning to remote work. Google for example is allowing free access to its advanced features to G Suite customers, Microsoft is offering a 6-month free trial to its top tier Microsoft Teams. Video conferencing provider Zoom is emerging as the clear star during this pandemic as its stock prices has risen, usage has surged. Zoom has also lifted its 40-minute limit from its free plan, support organizations to adopt to its work from home tool. Messaging app Slack has also seen a surge in its usage due to employees working from home. This pandemic has definitely accelerated these technology companies, at the same time shaping a new working culture which may even carry over after the pandemic passes.
Many businesses are forced to virtualize work in order to adapt to this new norm, accelerating digital transformation at an incredible pace. Restaurants and supermarkets are transitioning into online ordering and delivery, doctors are giving consultation through video calls, classes are being conducted through online teaching. This is the biggest organizational transformation in the history of modern firms. Even the New York Stock Exchange has closed its trading floor and moved to electronic trading.
Banks play one of the biggest roles in this pandemic as countless small to medium sized enterprise are relying on them for their survival. Applications for development loan are rapidly surging, banks will need to process them as quickly and as carefully as possible. They will need to find the balance between security and efficiency. With employees working remotely, it will be more difficult for them to handle these loan applications efficiently. In order to adapt, financial institutions will need to accelerate their digital transformation.
Introducing AI technologies such as automation will not only help FIs to operate efficiently during this pandemic, it will also put them in a better position for the future. In order to process these loan applications, a lot of financial documents will have to be manually reviewed and draw key information from. This proves to be a challenge with employees working remotely. Automation services such as SuperAcc will be able to automatically extract key insights from pdf/scanned financial documents, analyzing unstructured data such as personal information, loan offering information, property information, and corporate information through machine vision technology and natural language processing technology. Furthermore, the data output by this system is also more accurate and consistent comparing to the ones done by human.
Equinix CIO Milind Wagle says, “I think the easiest thing – but the worst thing – would be to freeze in this time of uncertainty and not move anything forward. Stopping commitments would be the wrong thing for CIOs to do.” This is a great opportunity for financial institutions to act quickly and purposefully during this pandemic. Starting an automation process is the first step, allowing them to operate efficiently during this crisis, and emerge as leaders after the crisis with their digital transformation.
