Striking the balance between automation and human factors in financial technology

This week saw a boost to the UK’s banking sector. Thanks to the Government’s plan to intensify competition in the sector, Tesco, Virgin Money and the Post Office have all revealed ambitions to take on the banking giants.

Tesco Bank, which already offers general, motor, home, pet and travel insurance, credit cards, personal loans and savings and cash machines, has long been staking a claim on retail finance. In November 2009, Tesco chose an off-the-shelf core banking system from Fisery to support its transition to a fully-functional consumer bank.

The Government’s own plan to make the Post Office into a fully-blown bank, offering current accounts to go alongside its existing mortgages, further up the ante, and require further IT investment.

Meanwhile, Virgin Money spokespeople announced that the company has bid to buy the Royal Bank of Scotland’s branches as part of its plan to become a full service bank.

With all of this expansion comes the need for added investment in technology, not only for efficiency’s sake, but also because since the banking crisis, consumers have demanded more transparency and an end to bonus-driven risky banking practices. Automation is a big part of this.

On that note, this week has also seen Capgemini’s director of core banking Christian Ball voicing his concerns over automation, and they are not without reason. Ball said that banks must reduce their over-reliance on automation in credit risk management systems when it comes to managing small business customers, combining software with human interaction to manage the risks of the SME sector, including high bankruptcy rates, low capitalisation and no credit ratings.

"Banks need to get the right balance between automation and the human relationship between the banker and the customer," Ball said.

Well said indeed. Inatech has always been a full supporter of greater transparency and efficiency through technology, but also places an emphasis on managing human risk through training and processes. Inatech’s completion of Dubai Bank’s migration of Oracle Human Resource Management System (HRMS) from Windows to Linux, plus an upgrade from Oracle E-Business Suite 11i to 12, is a case in point.

Dubai Bank through Inatech was able to automate the transaction process by implementing Expense Process automation (P2P). This provided Dubai Bank with an integrated, enterprise-wide view of Financials, HRMS and reporting. This in turn allows for transparency at a granular level to authorised sources, as well as ticking the eco-friendly box for reducing paper transactions. More efficient, more transparent and greener; just what the banking sector needs.