The 3 key areas where compliance automation saves banks the most time

Time is the most valuable thing an organization has, the only resource which truly can never be recouped or reused. Decreasing the amount of time taken to do a task isn’t just an improvement in terms of speed. It also helps the company become better at its job while at the same time increasing profitability. This is especially true for the financial industry. Banks and other financial institutions have matters that are more time sensitive than most other businesses.

Banks that can adapt faster and better are able to maneuver themselves into a powerful position in the market. This is why it is so important to have a regulatory change management solution as well as a compliance management solution – some things are too important and high-risk to be done manually.

Automation’s benefits are not theoretical – they’re everywhere

Technology and business magazines have been touting the benefits of automation for decades now, but there is a very important change. While these publications used to talk about the benefits automation will provide in the future, now they publish case studies of the benefits automation has already provided to businesses. These benefits have been realized and automation is already changing the landscape of many businesses and business processes – including compliance.

Administration

Automation speeds up administration to the point where it is no longer an obstacle for efficient organizations. When companies manage compliance manually it is very hard to be efficient due to administration being such a complex task. If everything is being written down and managed manually, it means that the compliance officers and managers must manually maintain and edit records in many separate files. Resultantly, a company’s compliance reports and information is spread throughout many different spreadsheets and documents. To work on an issue, the compliance officers must first collect all the files and separately make changes in each file.

Compliance automation means that all the issues are now handled within the system. There is no need to maintain spreadsheets full of information – one can simply view the information from the compliance management system. Any change that is needed to be made can be made directly into the system as well. This means that an administration task that required hours of work can now be done much more efficiently and effectively.

Tracking

Compliance managers and officers must keep track of multiple compliance related issues, discussions, audits, and much more. Everything needs to be done as per the schedule. There also needs to be a way to know all open issues in compliance. All of this is considerably difficult to do manually. If your compliance calendar is being maintained manually, there is always a chance that something may be overlooked.

Tracking isn’t just an issue of efficiency and record keeping for banks and financial institutions – tracking is necessary when it comes to audits. Auditors need to be able to see all the information about an issue. In the absence of a proper compliance management system they must manually collect all the data from many different sources. They must go through multiple spreadsheets, email threads, and documents and find out every relevant item. With tracking through automation there is no need to spend valuable time collecting everything – everything is already in the system.

All the information related to audits, issues, customer complaints, and much more are available, with tracking, in just a few clicks.

Searching

Another area where compliance management systems speed up work is searching for information. When information is spread over multiple spreadsheets and documents, it is hard to get the data that is needed. Collecting data for reports is a problem as well. Compliance management systems end up eliminating the need for either – because the data in them can be sliced and diced to get the required data. Want to know all compliance issues that are open? It just takes a few clicks. Want to find out how many compliance issues were dealt with over the past few months? That information is also just a few clicks away.

Managers do not even need to search at all if they want to find out about compliance issues – executive dashboards built within automated compliance management systems show all the relevant information in one place. This means that managers always have a live view of the overall compliance system.

Automation leads to focus on compliance

You may have noticed that when it comes to compliance management, automation has a slightly different meaning than what you are used to. In most industries automation ends up replacing labor, but something very different is happening in the world of compliance. Compliance management systems are not meant to replace your workforce – they are meant to augment your workforce and allow them to do much more.

With automation, the compliance officers and compliance managers will truly be able to put all their focus on compliance initiatives. Instead of worrying about managing all the information in multiple documents and spreadsheets they will be able to create audit plans. Instead of spending considerable time making sure everything is being kept track of, they can do an audit instead. Instead of spending hours looking for all the information they need, they can get all the information in a few clicks and start working immediately.

Time is the most valuable resource we have – let’s start using it better. Let’s spend it on compliance and risk management initiatives, and let the computers handle the rest.

About the company

360factors, Inc. (Austin, TX) helps companies improve business performance by reducing risk and ensuring compliance. Predict360, its flagship software product, vertically integrates regulations and requirements, policies and procedures management, risks and controls, audit management and inspections, and on-line training and qualifications, in a single cloud-based platform based on artificial intelligence.

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