With automation on the rise at financial institutions (FIs), solutions are now being scaled as organizations see a demonstrable return on investment.

Robotic process automation (RPA) company UiPath recently discussed FI automation trends, and what is changing in the tech approach banks are taking. The vendor late last year launched a container-based on-premise platform offering and said it may look to acquisitions to expand.

1. Chief information officers take charge

Traditionally, automation has often been accomplished in a “department-to-department, line business-to-line business” fashion that targeted inefficient processes in a piecemeal way, said Diego Lomanto, vice president of product marketing at UiPath. Now, however, more CIOs are now taking charge as FIs look to cross-departmental projects and are seeing “the potential of automation to drive foundational advantages for their core businesses.”

2. RPA sees faster adoption

With potential for low-code environments and mass scalability, RPA is being propelled forward more quickly in combination with solutions platforms, according to UiPath. “The more tools and use cases that can be brought together in one place, the better it is for you,” Lomanto said. FIs should map out how automation is being used and consider what could be grouped into a single platform, he advised.

3. Automation matures

FIs are looking for broader technology applications rather than smaller, individual automation projects. “They are building a layer of automation that sits on top of the application stack that brings [various automations] together for achieving new processes,” Lomanto said. FIs should be looking for broader applicability of automation solutions rather than a narrow, targeted approach, he said.

When working on individual automation projects, FIs should pay them forward, Lomanto added. “If you’re building a connection to an application for the first time, make that connection reusable for other people in the organization, so that anytime there’s a process that needs to leverage that [enterprise resource planning] system, people can reuse those components,” he said.

4. Task-based workflows emerge

One developing trend is FIs looking to task-based automation, Lomanto said, wherein an enterprise’s platform determines needed workflows and brings those to the employees for efficiency, instead of workers finding their own way. “Work becomes streamlined … and we reduce the complexity — less time is wasted,” he noted.

FIs have begun to consider the technology more broadly and flexibly, but also more universally, examining how automations might work similarly across departments or projects rather than as one-offs, according to UiPath.

FIs should look to flag for automation all standard processes that are well-defined, occur frequently and don’t vary much, Lomanto added.