The AI and automation imperative —Streamlining complex journeys

This article is part of our exclusive series on financial services trends for 2025, based on insights from our latest whitepaper. In this edition, we’ll dive into how AI-driven automation is transforming banking operations, particularly in client onboarding, KYC, and loan origination.?

Banks are under increasing pressure to improve operational efficiency, meet regulatory requirements, and enhance the customer experience—all while navigating a rapidly changing economic and competitive landscape. The good news? AI-driven automation is emerging as a game-changer, enabling banks to streamline complex, high-touch processes and reduce friction throughout the customer journey.?

?Key areas where automation is making an impact?

• ?Client onboarding? The client onboarding process is often one of the most resource-intensive and time-consuming tasks for financial institutions. Traditional manual processes involve gathering documents, verifying information, assessing risk, and entering data into multiple systems, which can lead to delays and customer dissatisfaction. AI-powered automation is helping to dramatically reduce onboarding timelines by automating data collection, document verification, and risk assessments. By leveraging intelligent document processing (IDP) and machine learning, banks can automatically extract and validate customer information from documents and emails—eliminating manual steps and improving accuracy.?
• ?Know your customer (KYC)? KYC is a critical regulatory requirement for banks, but it can also be an incredibly time-consuming process. Compliance teams must ensure they’re accurately capturing all required data, identifying potential risks, and keeping records up to date. AI and automation are transforming this process by streamlining data gathering and verification. For example, intelligent workflows can automate the extraction of data from structured and unstructured sources, like forms and emails, while also cross-referencing this data with external databases like sanctions lists. AI models can flag high-risk customers for deeper reviews, allowing compliance teams to focus on more strategic tasks while ensuring regulatory adherence.?
• Loan origination? Loan origination is another complex journey that involves multiple steps, such as application review, credit scoring, document verification, and approvals. Automating these tasks can not only reduce time-to-decision but also improve loan quality by minimizing human error. Automation in loan origination can streamline the application review process, validate applicant information in real time, and use AI-driven credit scoring models to assess risk. This results in faster loan approvals, better decision-making, and a smoother customer experience.?

Real-world automation use cases in banking??

Across the industry, leading financial institutions are seeing tangible results from AI-driven automation. Here are a couple of notable examples:?

Fiserv - 12,000 hours saved annually?- Fiserv implemented automation to extract merchant details from their database, cross-check them using a Bing API, and determine the correct Merchant Category Codes (MCC) with generative AI prompts from UiPath GenAI Activities. By automating 98% of the process, Fiserv has reduced manual effort by over 12,000 hours annually, minimizing the risk of misclassification and enhancing the accuracy of the process. This automation serves as a key demonstrator for broader AI adoption across the organization.?

Deluxe - 99% increase in time to value?- Deluxe is seeing remarkable improvements in its operations thanks to AI and automation. With UiPath Automation Cloud, Deluxe streamlined complex document processing tasks, such as contract pricing extraction and invoice processing. Using UiPath Action Center for simplified document handling, combined with UiPath AI Center to train machine learning models for text classification and named entity recognition, Deluxe has saved over 800 hours on a single pricing use case and achieved a 99% increase in time to value.?

The road ahead: Why automation is critical for 2025?

As banks continue to confront evolving challenges—from margin compression to compliance pressures—the need for AI-driven automation will only increase. Those who successfully automate complex journeys like client onboarding, KYC, and loan origination will be positioned to enhance operational efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and stay ahead of the competition.?

Want to learn more about how automation is shaping the future of banking? Download our whitepaper: [https://www.uipath.com/resources/automation-whitepapers/state-of-automation-in-banking-and-financial-services]?

Don’t miss our upcoming webinar, where we’ll dive deeper into the role of AI in financial services transformation: [https://start.uipath.com/The-state-of-financial-services-automation.html? Stay tuned for our next article in this series: How generative AI is redefining banking operations, from risk management to customer service.?