Umetna inteligenca in inteligentna avtomatizacija sta ključni za pomoč bankam pri krmarjenju z inflacijskim nevihtnim vremenom (Steve Morgan)

Six months ago preparing for SIBOS, the biggest elephant in the room for what’s keeping bankers up at night was probably sanctions. How Western governments have ratcheted up sanctions against Russians and Russian businesses will still be a big topic of SIBOS
but another issue is waded into the debate, namely inflation.

Na lanskem SIBOS-u je bila inflacija nizko enomestna in trgi nemoteni. Danes je inflacija v mnogih državah na najvišji ravni v zadnjih 40 letih in na dobri poti, da bo pred koncem leta še višja. 

Korporativne stranke bank zdaj k izzivom, s katerimi se soočajo, dodajajo variabilnost cen. To vpliva na vse, kar kupujejo in prodajajo, vključno s surovinami, komponentami, storitvami ter končnimi izdelki in storitvami.

Na vrhu seznama strategij, kako se podjetja odzivajo na inflacijske pritiske, je, kako se podjetja podvojijo pri iztiskanju še večje učinkovitosti iz svojih proizvodnih in dobavnih linij. 

S to strategijo je treba uskladiti tudi korporativno in zakladniško funkcijo bank. Zamude pri plačilih in denarnih tokovih niso nikoli dobra novica, vendar so v trenutnih gospodarskih razmerah še posebej nedopustne. 

In seveda širitev sankcij ne pomaga. Ocenjuje se, da trenutno proti Rusom in ruskim podjetjem velja 5,581 sankcij (Vir:
Statista) banke pa morajo skrbno krmariti po teh, ko sprejemajo stranke in obdelujejo plačila. To bo ustvarilo regulativno breme, ki bo dolgotrajno, tudi če se bo invazija kmalu končala. 

Clearly, information technology solutions that can automate exceptions linked to sanctions will be critical. But, how banks are able to ensure a higher percentage of straight through processes for all international payments will be even more essential when
businesses are combating inflationary costs and need swifter payment and settlements. 

As their corporate customers are hit by severe price variability and supply chain stresses linked to energy price rises and the aftereffects of the pandemic, banks need to do as much as they can to build out a service backbone that simplifies servicing of
business accounts. The goal has to be to minimise unnecessary delays that add further stresses onto the already stressed business operations of their corporate clients. 

As you might expect AI and intelligent automation can play a crucial role here. Banks will be increasingly leaning on solutions that use natural language processing to monitor inquiry channels and auto respond much faster or route the request to the right
skilled person. The goal is to dramatically reduce duplicate requests and have fewer employees reading and responding to emails and instead processing answers. The secret sauce to success will be how intelligent the bank’s AI is in routing inquiries and communications
to automatically reply instantly, create cases to get a job complicated by some exception done faster or immediately triage to a team or individual with the resources and skills to sort the issue out. 

SIBOS can sometimes be about talking about future solutions. Today’s perfect storm of inflationary pressures, supply chain stresses and geopolitical complications cannot wait. The good news is many banks have streamlined and automated inquiry management
and other processes in their trade and treasury services to increase straight through processing to 80% and higher of all payments. The availability of low code solutions means that the creation of these new service backbones to support corporate customers
can be realised much faster than before and help ride out the current storms.