Robotic Process Automation Drives ESG Compliance and Corporate Sustainability Goals

As institutional shareholders, retail investors, and regulatory agencies alike continue to stress the importance of meeting Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives for the new age of stakeholder capitalism, banks and other financial institutions find themselves under increasing pressure to achieve sustainability goals.

Faced with the daunting task of collecting and analyzing amounts of data that are almost incomprehensibly large, banks and other financial service firms are turning to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in record numbers.

Integrating the newest advances in automation, RPA essentially uses software "robots" to perform repetitive tasks. RPA is one of several technologies that can help banks and financial institutions ensure that ESG initiatives turn out to be successful.

ESG Compliance Is Becoming Increasingly Important

In a reliable foreshadowing of the role that corporate sustainability practices will play in capital markets moving forward, both the European Union and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission have ramped up ESG oversight efforts significantly over the last several years. Furthermore, several of the world's largest private equity funds and other institutional investors have begun demanding that corporate boards produce publicly available plans to achieve ESG goals within a dedicated time frame.

For many companies, such as those in the oil and gas industry, investors demand rapid change within the next ten years. Banks and financial institutions, of course, are not immune to any of these pressures. On the contrary, banks must comply with ESG mandates for internal operations and do extensive ESG due diligence on prospective corporate borrowers. These institutions appear to be up for the challenge.

Adapting RPA Automation to Meet ESG Compliance Goals

By simplifying compliance processes, RPA development providers are helping banks around the world turn ESG ambitions into tangible results.

As an example, City National Bank, a Royal Bank of Scotland subsidiary, has used UiPath customization to decrease the time it takes to onboard a new client from roughly 10 minutes to under 60 seconds, thereby being able to meet social contribution goals through a much-improved customer experience.

ESG Beyond Banking and Finance

Banking and financial service firms have been at the forefront of the ESG revolution, but companies in several of the world's largest industries are now proudly announcing commitments to sustainability and presenting ambitious plans to shareholders and non-financial stakeholders alike. Just like banks, private lenders, hedge funds, and private equity firms, enterprises in the real estate industry, the energy industry, and several other sectors of the global economy are discovering that automation makes ESG reporting and auditing feasible for the first time in history. As this is happening, service vendors that specialize in UiPath development are leading the charge. A team of specialized RPA experts should be hired to help organizations implement RPA for their systems.

For companies with subsidiaries and other investments, automation can drill down on every part of the portfolio to uncover compliance risks. Furthermore, robotic process automation can benchmark company performance against target carbon emissions and other ESG KPIs. In addition, cybersecurity automation helps ensure that sensitive customer data remains protected.

The Pillars of a Successful RPA Initiative

Financial service companies that have been able to utilize cutting-edge automation strategies with UiPath are now serving as effective case studies of all the ways RPA can increase revenue while simultaneously boosting ESG metrics, specifically, the world's leading financial institutions are using all the following to stay ahead of the competition:

• Drag-and-Drop Artificial Intelligence Platforms: By easily deploying proprietary ML models and importing third-party solutions, companies with an ESG mandate can rapidly improve capabilities in natural language processing and use improved computer vision technology to boost workplace safety.

• Skilled Robots: With such a wide variety of applications supported, UiPath customization for financial institutions and banks can decrease credit risk while achieving social contribution goals. Moreover, UiPath's AI Computer Vision technology uses large-scale training sets and the "on-the-job" experience of robots to improve performance over time.

• Defense-Grade Security: As one of the few automation platforms to meet Veracode's Verified Continuous standard, UiPath ensures compliance with privacy laws around customer data storage.

Total Financial Compliance

ESG is just one of many compliance standards in an industry stricken with strict regulatory oversight. Robotic Process Automation has applications far beyond ESG that should provoke institutions to think beyond corporate sustainability initiatives as automation use cases. Sarbanes-Oxley, GDPR, and PCI are just the tip of the iceberg of how RPA can help financial organizations not only comply with regulation but streamline workflows and maximize profits.