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Blanc Labs Achieves SOC 2 Type 2 Certification

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Blanc Labs, a leading provider of enterprise–level professional services, is proud to announce that it has successfully obtained the SOC 2 Type 2 certification. This certification validates Blanc Labs’ commitment to securely managing data and protecting the interests of its clients, cementing its position as a trusted partner for security-conscious businesses. 

SOC 2, developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), is an auditing procedure that defines rigorous criteria for managing customer data based on five essential “trust service principles”, namely: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. The Type 2 certification signifies that Blanc Labs has not only implemented the necessary controls to meet these principles but has also demonstrated their effectiveness over an extended period. 

 “At Blanc Labs, we understand the paramount importance of data security and privacy. This certification is a testament to our unwavering commitment to safeguarding our clients’ sensitive information, and it reinforces our dedication to maintaining the highest standards of excellence in all aspects of our operations,” said Hamid Akbari, CEO of Blanc Labs. 

Blanc Labs’ comprehensive approach to security extends beyond achieving certifications. The company continually invests in robust security protocols and employee training programs to ensure a holistic and proactive approach to data protection.  

As technology continues to evolve, data security and privacy remain critical concerns for businesses. Blanc Labs’ commitment to obtaining and maintaining the SOC 2 Type 2 certification showcases its dedication to meeting the highest standards of security and privacy in an ever-changing landscape. 

 

About Blanc Labs: 

Blanc Labs offers technology solutions that help enterprises prepare for the future. Blanc Labs has developed expertise and bespoke solutions in a wide variety of applications, including financial services, healthcare, enterprise productivity, and customer experience. Blanc Labs helps companies rapidly deliver on their digital initiatives. Headquartered in Toronto, Blanc Labs serves the Americas through operations in Toronto, New York, Bogota, and Buenos Aires. For more information, visit www.blanclabs.com  

   

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Healthcare Interoperability: Challenges and Benefits

Challenges and Benefits Health Interoperability

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 provided hospitals and health professionals incentives to use electronic health record technology. Healthcare organizations quickly moved healthcare records to digital applications, providing an opportunity to use this data cohesively through healthcare interoperability. 

ARRA has been the driving force behind the digitization of healthcare records in the recent past. The problem? Software vendors developed various applications for the healthcare industry. The result was data silos stored in disparate systems. 

Healthcare interoperability is a step towards developing a digital ecosystem for the healthcare industry, where data can be exchanged and accessed securely without  boundaries. 

What is Healthcare Interoperability? 

 Interoperability removes the barriers in information exchange introduced by differences in technology, architecture, and vendors. 

Seamless access to healthcare data is critical. The inability to access healthcare records during an emergency can result in adverse outcomes. 

Moreover, information blocking can result in penalties of up to $1 million per violation. 

Keeping health data secure is just as important as the ability to share it. That’s why healthcare interoperability requires a careful approach. The combined use of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and information standards like FHIR and HL7 can help healthcare companies make the best use of electronic records while ensuring data integrity. 

Healthcare interoperability allows clinicians to provide better care and coordinate with other clinicians. It provides clinicians and other healthcare providers with a standardized way to collect and report public health data. 

Collectively, these factors can improve patient outcomes and safety, minimize the risk of error, and increase the efficiency of internal processes. 

Levels of Healthcare Interoperability 

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has defined four levels of healthcare interoperability. Each level represents a type of data exchange. 

Foundational Interoperability 

Foundational interoperability (or simple transport) is the most basic type of interoperability. A system transfers data to another system without interpreting or changing its format. 

For example, you download a patient’s public health record and manually enter those details into your proprietary software. 

Structural Interoperability 

Structural interoperability (or structured transport) involves interpretation. Systems exchange data and, when needed, convert it to a standardized format for interpretation. 

The information uses a standard syntax and organization, so it’s easier for the receiving system to detect and interpret specific fields. 

FHIR and HL7 provide structural interoperability, allowing you to move information across systems seamlessly. 

Semantic Interoperability 

Exchanging and interpreting data with entirely different data structures requires semantic interoperability (or semantic transport). 

Suppose you receive a scanned image of a patient’s medical report. The information in this image must be converted into text fields before it can be imported into your system. 

Extracting the information from one system, structuring it so that another system understands the extracted information, and automatically filling out the right data in the right fields requires artificial intelligence (AI). 

A combination of technologies like optical character recognition (OCR), robotic process automation (RPA), and AI can help achieve full semantic interoperability like so: 

  • OCR extracts the information from the image: The information in the patient’s report like their name and blood group is extracted. 
  • AI-based technologies like NLP and machine learning (ML) help interpret the extracted information: The information may not always be in a standard format. For example, the numbers in your blood report may be written as 10^9 or 109. NLP will help the system understand that both of these mean the same thing. 
  • RPA populates the relevant data in the recipient system: Once the system interprets this information, RPA automatically adds this information to the recipient system. 

Organizational Interoperability 

Organizational interoperability is the highest level of interoperability. 

It facilitates sharing and interpreting healthcare data securely, seamlessly, and in a timely fashion between organizations, entities, and individuals, with governance, policy, social, legal, and organizational considerations factored in. 

Organizational interoperability is the goal. But most healthcare companies are still working on achieving foundational and structural interoperability. 

Once organizations have achieved lower levels of interoperability, they’ll have a strong foundation for achieving organizational interoperability and other ways to improve health data exchange. 

Navigating the journey from foundational to organizational interoperability is fraught with challenges, but these can be overcome with careful planning and strategizing. Read more here.  

What is FHIR? 

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is a healthcare data standards framework developed by HL7 (Health Level 7). The FHIR provides a standard framework to make transferring healthcare data between systems easier. 

FHIR consists of resources like health data formats and elements (such as conditions and medications) that you can exchange easily. It also provides standardization for APIs. 

Modern healthcare benefits from FHIR in multiple ways. It facilitates exchanging information with legacy applications, but that’s not the only reason to use FHIR. 

The Blue Button 2.0 API, which allows accessing healthcare information, is based on FHIR. The FHIR standards framework is a key component of the United States’ national interoperability roadmap. 

If your healthcare business receives payments for Medicare or Medicaid, using FHIR for interoperability is critical. 

Data from an Engineer Group survey commissioned by Change Healthcare suggests that only 24% of healthcare companies were using FHIR APIs at scale in 2021. However, the research suggests widespread adoption by 2024. 

As more healthcare providers start using FHIR APIs, they’ll be able to use and provide patients with a richer set of functionalities. 

4 Challenges with Healthcare Information Exchange 

The current low rate of interoperability is a result of the challenges associated with healthcare information exchange. Below are four of the most pressing challenges that stand in the way of healthcare organizations achieving interoperability.

Inconsistent Data 

Healthcare organizations generate data from multiple, disparate sources. These sources typically store data in the database in various formats and data types that are incompatible with each other. 

When systems exchange incompatible data types, the recipient system can’t interpret the information. For example, medical records may contain the patient’s medical history and treatment plan. The recipient system must interpret this information to be able to use it. 

Maintaining Client Data Confidentiality 

Ensuring the confidentiality of patient health records is critical to maintaining a good reputation and, more importantly, complying with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). 

 Electronic health records (EHR)  need a secure mechanism to validate requests for patient information. 

Many providers use systems that may or may not be compatible with EHR products, which can potentially result in a breach of regulations like HIPAA. 

Once the ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule comes into force, healthcare providers will need to comply with its new training and certification requirements too. 

Personal health information (PHI) breaches can be a recipe for losing reputation and heavy penalties. 

Conflict of Interest 

Not all businesses want to share patient data because you’ll often need to share information with a direct competitor. 

For example, if you’re a hospital, you’ll understandably be reluctant to share patient data with urgent care clinics. 

Regulations are the best solution to this challenge. The Cures Act has various information-blocking provisions that will compel healthcare providers to provide information when appropriate. 

Cost of Hiring an Interoperability Specialist 

Achieving interoperability is expensive because it requires specialists that dedicate their time to maintain interoperability. 

Of course, this person needs the right qualifications and experience handling interoperability-related tasks. 

If you make some rough calculations, you’ll see just how expensive hiring this specialist can be. The cost makes providers, especially smaller healthcare businesses, rethink the feasibility of interoperability. 

The solution to this problem is simpler than the previous ones. Instead of hiring a person, you can invest in an automated interoperability system that takes care of most tasks. 

An automation system costs significantly less than hiring a specialist in the long term. 

5 Benefits of Healthcare Interoperability 

The benefits of healthcare interoperability far outweigh the cost of addressing the challenges. Here are the five benefits healthcare interoperability offers.

Improves Patient Outcomes and Experience

Healthcare interoperability isn’t just a regulatory burden. It’s an asset you can build to improve patient outcomes and experience. 

As life expectancy rises, interoperability will prepare you for value-based patient care. Real-time access to a patient’s medical history allows you to get a deeper insight into the patient’s condition and minimize medical errors. 

Data access also reduces duplication of efforts. Since you’ll have the information about diagnosis, tests, and results, you can directly start working on developing a treatment plan or running other tests. 

You’ll know about the patient’s allergies and health plan before starting treatment so that you can provide appropriate advice. 

These factors collectively improve the patient’s experience and allow you to provide better care. 

Reduces Cost of Care 

Interoperability reduces the cost of care in multiple ways: 

  • Streamlines care delivery: Better coordination among healthcare providers streamlines care delivery. You won’t have to repeat tests, and you’ll have the information about the previous diagnosis and treatment. 
  • Minimizes errors: Interoperability reduces the cost of care by minimizing medical errors. 
  • Increased productivity: Your administrative staff won’t have to reenter the same data over and over once you’ve achieved interoperability. Your team saves time on manual data entry when you use technologies like intelligent document processing (IDP) to convert physical documents into digital files. 

Collectively, these factors can help reduce the cost of care by a good margin. You can transfer these savings to your patients to offer them more value at a lower cost. 

Keeps Patient Data Secure 

Patients trust that their data is safe with healthcare providers. Compromising this data’s integrity can result in a loss of reputation. Ensuring data integrity is also a compliance requirement. 

Hundreds of electronic medical records are compromised daily. As many as 54,396 individuals were affected just by a single breach at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital on March 20, 2023. 

Your systems need to be HIPAA-compliant. The best interoperability partners are experienced in creating compliant interoperability solutions, which is reassuring when implementing a complex technological solution with legal implications. 

Contributes to Research 

The data you collect during regular business, like diagnosing, testing, and treating patients can be an asset for public health researchers. 

Interoperability allows researchers to request data from your systems for studies in various medical fronts like epidemiology and pathology. 

This helps build a good reputation. You can add the fact that you share data with scientists to contribute to society and build goodwill for your healthcare business. 

Minimizes Burnout 

Digital transformation generally makes processes faster and easier. But the situation with EHR adoption is a little different. 

The administrative load on physicians has increased significantly because of compliance requirements and disparate solutions used by clinicians. 

That’s where interoperability helps. It allows you to automate mundane labor-intensive tasks like data entry. 

With less time spent on time-consuming and repetitive tasks, your administrative staff won’t reel under the pressure of EHR compliance requirements. Addressing burnout also reduces the probability of human error. 

Start Your Interoperability Journey with Blanc Labs 

Achieving structural interoperability offers various benefits. Selecting a partner with extensive experience managing APIs is critical to reaping the full benefits of structural interoperability and frictionless implementation. 

Blanc Labs are experts at building standards-based interoperability solutions that enable healthcare organizations to improve patient outcomes, enhance efficiency and achieve seamless integration within the health ecosystem. 

Book a discovery session with Blanc Labs to learn how we can help your healthcare business achieve interoperability. 

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Navigating the Healthcare Interoperability Journey

The journey of navigating healthcare interoperability is a critical one, and an incredibly complex endeavor. Healthcare organizations must tackle big tasks like accessing exchange networks, mapping messages across systems, and integrating with multiple data sources while also operating within tight compliance rules. It can be especially daunting for executives tasked with ensuring successful implementation. If this describes you or someone on your team, don’t worry—there are ways to ensure success as you undertake the process of achieving healthcare interoperability. 

In this article we explain what it means to embark on an interoperability journey and how best to implement it throughout an enterprise organization.  

Stage 1: Strategy and Roadmap

Beginning the healthcare interoperability journey involves addressing key pain points, such as: 

  1. A lack of common standards and communication protocols between existing health systems like Electronic Medical Record (EMR), Laboratory Information Systems (LIS), etc. 
  2. Limited IT budgets and minimal underlying infrastructure 
  3. A shortage of interoperability-focused resources 

To tackle these challenges, the first step is to create a well-defined strategy, followed by a comprehensive gap analysis and a dynamic roadmap aimed at ensuring regulatory compliance and achieving seamless integration of healthcare data. A crucial aspect of this journey is addressing the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) mandate that requires healthcare organizations to adopt and implement interoperability standards.  

At this stage of the interoperability journey, organizations move from having disconnected data systems to making data organized and manageable. Applications of interoperability at this stage include patient-centered care. 

The importance of securing curated and standardized health data

Securing curated and standardized data is crucial in ensuring that information is both organized and meaningful, particularly in the context of patient-centered care. By utilizing a data curation process, healthcare providers can effectively gather, annotate, and maintain relevant datasets that accurately represent patients’ medical histories, conditions, and preferences. This process often involves removing inconsistencies or inaccuracies, as well as integrating data from various sources into one unified platform. Standardizing this data in accordance with industry regulations or established protocols, such as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) or Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT), enables seamless communication and the exchange of information.  

Furthermore, the implementation of advanced security measures, including encryption and robust access controls, helps protect sensitive patient information from unauthorized access or potential breaches, adhering to privacy standards like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Altogether, the rigorous curation, standardization, and security of data serve as foundational elements in the journey to interoperability.  

Stage 2: Validating Strategy

The journey towards interoperability maturity is a complex and ongoing process, requiring healthcare organizations to regularly validate their strategies and roadmaps, align budgets with evolving business needs and technological advancements, and comply with CMS mandates. Achieving interoperability maturity involves focusing on core aspects such as:  

  • Enabling seamless communication and coordination between disparate systems 
  • Instituting a robust data management plan with accurate data mapping 
  • Leveraging cutting-edge API technologies to address diverse use cases efficiently

Organizations must stay ahead of the curve by continuously assessing and refining their interoperability efforts with industry best practices and regulatory requirements as benchmarks. This iterative approach ensures that organizations can consistently drive improvements in care delivery, patient satisfaction, and long-term healthcare outcomes. 

By this stage in the interoperability journey, companies graduate from simply having organized data systems to making them data analytics ready. This enables organizations to track patients over a longer period and participate in integrated healthcare.

Stage 3: Developing and end-to-end ecosystem for healthcare interoperability

The last stage in the healthcare interoperability journey is about addressing the alignment between business and technology objectives. A fundamental aspect of this stage is obtaining leadership buy-in, thereby empowering organizations to extend their interoperability initiatives beyond what is mandated by regulatory and industry requirements.  

By focusing on enabling a comprehensive end-to-end solution for interoperability, organizations can leverage the potential of emerging standards, such FHIR, to facilitate seamless intra- and cross-organizational data exchange. Additionally, investing in the development of an Application Programming Interface (API)-driven ecosystem allows organizations to foster a highly connected, flexible, and scalable technology infrastructure that promotes innovative and improved patient-centric care services.  

In the final stage of the healthcare interoperability journey, organizations are in the position to develop data driven applications (e.g predictive analytics, advanced reporting, population health management, etc.) using the latest technologies like AI to improve patient outcomes, enhance operational efficiency & increase profitability. 

Get Started on your Healthcare Interoperability Journey with Blanc Labs 

Interoperability can seem daunting, especially when trying to make sense of the entire journey. However, if approached methodically and incrementally with a well-thought-out strategy and roadmap, the end result can be a more secure, efficient, and user-centric system. Starting with developing the vision for an ecosystem that works for both you and your customers should give you confidence for making investments in interoperability technologies.  

To understand how the interoperability journey will apply to your organization, simply speak to an expert from Blanc Labs today. 
 

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The Benefits of an Automated Loan Origination System

The benefits of an automated loan origination system collectively add immense value for you and your customers. 

Deloitte and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) surveyed finance professionals across the globe and found that respondents plan to implement or are already implementing robotic process automation (RPA) (22.8%) and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) (21.4%). 

Why should your organization be left behind? 

In this article, we explain the benefits of an automated loan origination system and help you understand how exactly it can impact your loan origination process. 

Automated Loan Origination Vs. Manual Loan Origination 

Manual loan origination is a loan origination system where you handle the customer’s application manually, from processing documents to assessing the customer’s credit risk profile. 

On the other hand, an automated loan origination system allows you to automate the end-to-end loan process, from application to documentation, underwriting, and administration. 

Automated loan origination systems typically use a combination of technologies like intelligent document processing (IDP), RPA, AI, and ML. 

Automating the loan origination process solves two critical challenges for lenders: 

  • Keeping the turnaround time under control 
  • Finding specialists who can reliably complete the pre-underwriting process


An automated loan origination system involves using software solutions. Your team will likely experience a learning curve, and that’s why you should work with a company that can ensure the learning curve is gentle. Blanc Labs partners with UiPath to provide automation solutions—learn how Blanc Labs hyper automated a client’s loan origination process. 

Benefits of Automated Loan Origination Before and After

The Benefits of Automation the Loan Origination 

Like with any other investment, you’re probably asking what you stand to gain after investing in an automated loan origination system. Let’s talk about the most prominent benefits of automating loan origination. 

Improved Productivity 

According to a McKinsey study, automating the KYC process can increase the number of cases processed by 48%. Automation also minimizes the risk of error, further improving productivity. 

Solutions powered by AI and ML can fast-track loan processing, allowing your team to process more applications per month. Your staff won’t have to handle paperwork manually or spend hours hunting for minor details in the customers’ documents. 

This allows your team to dedicate more time to other revenue-generating activities and exceeding customer expectations instead of mundane tasks. 

Think about the KYC (Know Your Customer) process as an example. You could have a team member collect KYC documents, verify them, and store them for future reference. Or you could use IDP to automate all these steps, allowing your team to focus on sales and support. 

Once you receive a digital copy of KYC documents from a loan applicant, you can use IDP to input the data into your system — with zero manual effort. 

An Accenture case study explains the impact of automation on one of their banking clients. The case study describes how Accenture helped them create new automated processes that improved productivity by over 40%. 

Accurate Decision Making 

The best automated loan original systems use your strategy and data in the system to make accurate decisions. Machine learning algorithms can even provide deeper insights for decision-making by eliminating data silos. 

For example, you might have applicants you can’t score based on traditional credit models. Machine learning models can help assess the risk of such applicants, allowing you to achieve financial inclusion objectives without breaching your risk threshold. 

According to a report by McKinsey, you can automate various parts of credit decisioning or make better decisions based on the data collected by the automated loan origination system. Here’s how an automated loan origination system can help improve credit decisioning: 

  • Credit qualification: Using automated systems to qualify a largely unbanked or underbanked segment by analyzing thousands of data points that were previously inaccessible (such as data from social media and browser history). 
  • Limit assessment: Determining the maximum amount to lend a customer by assessing data from financial statements, tax returns, and other documents using optical character recognition (OCR) as well as new data sources like email and e-commerce expenditure (with the customer’s permission). 
  • Pricing optimization: Analyzing an applicant’s risks with more data instead of simply relying on traditional credit scoring models allows for determining a more accurate rate of interest while keeping risk costs low. For example, ML models can use natural language processing (NLP) to draw insights from a customer’s interaction with the sales reps or determine a customer’s propensity to buy based on the types of financial products. 
  • Fraud management: Detecting fraud is critical when loan origination processes move fast. There are various ways to detect fraud effectively using AI. For example, you might use image-analytics models to interpret a person’s expressions before the brain has a chance to control them. 

 

You can create rules based on these insights to automate one or more parts of the loan origination process, and you can also change these rules over time. For example, the World Bank uses a Decision Authority Matrix to automatically leave low-risk decisions to RPA, while some critical decisions require the involvement of the President. 

Well-Defined Workflows 

Automated systems help create well-defined workflows. The system gives you more control and visibility over the process, allowing you to regularize processes like storing documents, manual approvals, and assessment of an applicant’s risk. The lending automation system relies on the information already in the system and trigger-based actions to accomplish this. 

With a well-defined workflow, the next step is always clear. But in some cases, there may be caveats. For example, the customer might have requested a loan for an amount larger than your brand can approve. You need to communicate this to the customer along with the amount your institution can lend. 

The best automated loan origination systems can use rule-based decision-making to automatically trigger a notification to the customer, informing them about the maximum amount that can be lent by your branch. 

You can also address other caveats using the rules-based mechanism. For example, you can configure the system to make complex calculations based on the underwriters’ criteria for a consistent approval workflow. 

Enhanced Scalability 

Scalability is one of the most significant bottlenecks for any lender that uses manual processes. Here are the problems with manual loan origination: 

  • Hiring fast enough to meet a sudden spike in demand is tough. 
  • Scaling back during an economic downturn can be challenging. 

 

The Origination Insight Report by ICE Mortgage Technology (a leading cloud-based provider for lenders) reported that, on average, lenders take about 50 days to close a loan. 

Lenders can overcome this bottleneck with automation. You can automate various parts of the process to increase scalability, such as: 

  • Collecting pre-qualification data: A team member might spend hours manually identifying pre-qualified candidates, but automating can earn all of that time back for your team member. Assessing forms using IDP and AI can help automatically select pre-qualified customers at scale. 
  • Streamline information management: Paperwork, whether physical or digital, can get messy in large volumes. Automation solutions can help you and your customers fetch the correct information quickly without shuffling through a stack of papers. This allows you to work faster and process more applications each month. 
  • Data extraction: You can extract data from physical and digital documents using IDP, AI, and NLP. These technologies can transmit the extracted data to business applications like a customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Whether you’ve approved 100 applications or 1,000, you won’t have to spend a single minute migrating data manually when you use these technologies. 

Insights for Continuous Improvement 

An automated system collects a large volume of internal data while performing repetitive tasks. The same system can put this internal data in perspective by drawing insights from big data. 

An automated system can offer four types of analytics: 

  • Descriptive analytics: Involves looking at historical data to identify trends. This type of analytics helps you learn more about your customers — what customer traits influence loan performance? When lending to high-risk borrowers, which loan structure and tenure minimize the risk of default? 
  • Diagnostic analytics: Helps understand why something happened based on historical data. 
  • Predictive analytics: The system’s algorithm predicts what will happen based on data. 
  • Prescriptive analytics: Involves using AI, ML, and structured and unstructured data to answer how you can make something happen. Example: you can determine the geographic locations where you’re most likely to see success for a specific type of loan product. 

The best automated systems auto-generate reports and summaries, so you can quickly go to your dashboard and get key metrics for your loan origination process. 

Better Customer Experience 

Digital originators are quickly gaining market share and giving banks a run for their money. The reason? They match a modern customer’s need for convenience, speed, and transparency. 

The faster you process applications, the better your customers’ experience. The problem, though, is that the loan origination workflow is often extensive. You need to assess the applicant’s credit profile and collateral and check all the regulatory boxes. 

An automated loan origination system can do much of the heavy lifting for you. It can help make decisions based on the customers’ credit profiles, verify the validity of the collateral, as well as ensure compliance. 

You’ll be able to focus on delivering improved customer experiences by minimizing processing times and using your own time to focus on value-adding tasks. As McKinsey explains in one of its articles: 

“Instead of processing transactions or compiling data, [the operations staff] will use technology to advise clients on the best financial options and products, do creative problem solving, and develop new products and services to enhance the customer experience.” 

Automate Loan Origination with Blanc Labs 

Selecting the right partner to implement automated loan origination helps ensure you have the support you need to address the complexities of lending automation. That’s where Blanc Labs comes in. 

Blanc Labs can create a personalized automation system for your organization. The three steps Blanc Labs uses to help lenders include assessing your needs, streamlining your loan origination processes and related platforms, and creating an automation system using technologies like IDP, AI, and ML. 

Book a consultation or discovery session with Blanc Labs to learn how we can help automate your end-to-end loan origination process. 

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10 Tips to Successfully Implement RPA in Finance

Automation has taken the finance industry by storm, and for all good reasons. Banking automation technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) come with the promise of streamlining processes and increasing efficiency.  

According to Forbes, RPA has the potential to transform the way finance functions, from reducing manual errors to freeing up valuable resources. To help you maximize the benefits of RPA in finance, we’ve put together a list of 10 tips for successful implementation. But first, let’s take a step back and explore what RPA is.  

What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)? 

RPA is the use of software robots to automate routine and repetitive tasks like document processing, freeing up employees to focus on strategic activities that can lead to better customer service or innovations that could meet customer expectations.  

The bots are programmed to follow specific rules and procedures to complete a task, just like an employee. They can interact with various software applications and systems, such as spreadsheets and databases, to collect and process data. The bots can also make decisions, trigger responses, and communicate with other systems and software.  

When a task is triggered, the bot performs it automatically, eradicating the scope of errors that may be produced through manual processes. The process is monitored and managed by a central control system, allowing adjustments and updates to be made as needed. 

Think of RPA as a digital workforce, working tirelessly in the background to complete tasks that would otherwise take hours to complete. With RPA in finance, your financial institution can increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve the accuracy of its processes.  

The Use of RPA in Banking Automation 

There are many ways in which RPA can be used in banking automation. Here are some of them: 

Customer Service Automation 

RPA is capable of automating routine customer service tasks such as account opening, balance inquiries, and transaction processing, allowing bank employees to focus on more complex customer needs. 

Loan Processing 

RPA in banking and finance can streamline the loan processing workflow by automating repetitive tasks such as document collection and verification, credit score analysis, and loan decision-making. 

Fraud Detection and Prevention 

In 2022 alone, banks and financial institutions lost $500K to fraud. Technologies like RPA can analyze vast amounts of data to detect and prevent fraud in real-time, improving the accuracy and speed of fraud detection. It may also report any suspected fraud to the banking authorities as soon as it is discovered. 

KYC and AML Compliance 

Verification and compliance document processing can eat up a major share of your institution’s resources. RPA can automate the process of collecting, verifying, and analyzing customer information, helping banks to comply with KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) regulations. 

Back Office Operations 

RPA can automate various back-office tasks such as data entry, reconciliation, report generation, monthly closing, and management reports, freeing up employees to focus on more strategic initiatives. 

Payment Processing 

Manual data entry in payment processing can lead to manual errors and longer processing time. RPA can automate the payment processing workflow, including payment initiation, authorization, and settlement, reducing the risk of errors and improving efficiency. 

Risk Management 

Banks and financial institutions are constantly at risk from various sources. RPA in finance can help institutions identify, assess, and manage risks by automating data collection, analysis, and reporting, improving the accuracy and speed of risk assessments. 

Internal Compliance Monitoring 

RPA can automate the process of monitoring and reporting on compliance with internal policies and regulations, reducing the risk of non-compliance and improving overall compliance management. 

 The potential of RPA in banking and finance is unlimited. When combined with Intelligent Automation technologies, RPA can leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to provide more intelligent process automation. While the technology in itself is efficient, financial institutions must know how to implement it for maximized benefit.  

10 Tips for Successfully Implementing RPA in Finance 

According to the Deloitte Global RPA survey, 53% of organizations who took part in the survey have already begun their RPA implementation. The number is expected to rise to 72% over the next year. Entering the RPA race can be quick, but managing and scaling it is a different ball game. Before getting started with automation initiatives, it is important to consider the following tips.  

Start Small 

While RPA might seem useful to rejuvenate all of your systems and processing, it is important to consider the business impact and start small. Beginning with a smaller project, for example, a single process or department can help build momentum and demonstrate the benefits of RPA. It also allows the organization to gain experience and develop a better understanding of the technology before scaling up. 

Define Clear Goals 

The key to successful RPA implementation rests in your goals. Decide what you want to achieve with RPA in consultation with your IT department. Having a clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the RPA implementation will ensure that resources are allocated appropriately and that the project stays on track. Aim for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.  

Involve Stakeholders 

Engaging stakeholders, such as the management, finance employees, and IT, can help build better design and smoother change management for the RPA implementation. It also ensures that the RPA system is well-integrated across departments and addresses the needs and concerns of all stakeholders. 

Assess Processes 

When a financial institution leverages too many bots to automate processes, it results in a pile of data. They may be tempted to use ML on the data and create a chatbot to make customer queries easier. However, it can lead to  a poorly planned ML project. Thus, a thorough assessment of the processes is critical to ensure that the RPA implementation does not get sidetracked. This assessment should include an analysis of the tasks, inputs, outputs, and stakeholders involved in the process. 

 

10 tips to implement RPA in Finance_infographic_Blanc Labs

Choose the Right Tools 

Selecting the right RPA tools and technology is critical to the success of the implementation. Decide the mix of automation technologies your institution requires before reaching out to a vendor. Factors to consider include the cost, scalability, and ease of use , as well as its ability to integrate with other systems and applications. 

Define Roles and Responsibilities 

Clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of the RPA team, including project governance, testers, and users, is important to ensure that everyone knows what is expected of them. Remember that automation is a gradual process, and your employees will still need to interfere if it is not properly automated.  

Ensure Data Security 

Protecting sensitive data and customer information is a key concern in finance. RPA needs to be implemented in such a way that data security remains unaffected. Discuss with your vendor about strong security measures to ensure that data is protected and that the confidentiality of customer information is maintained. 

Plan for Scalability 

There are thousands of processes in banks and financial institutions that can use automation. Thus, the RPA implementation should be planned with scalability in mind so that the technology and processes can be scaled up as needed. This helps to ensure that the RPA can be combined with AI and ML technologies as necessary and the implementation remains relevant in the long term. 

Monitor and Evaluate Performance 

Continuously monitoring and evaluating the performance of the RPA bots is critical to ensure that they are operating effectively and efficiently. Also, do not forget to keep HR in the loop so that employees are informed and trained about the changing processes and how to use them in a timely manner. Regular evaluations should be conducted to identify areas for improvement and to make adjustments as needed. 

Foster a Culture of Innovation 

Encouraging a culture of innovation and experimentation can help to ensure that the organization is prepared for the future. Consult your IT department and automate your entire development lifecycle to protect your bots from disappearing after a major update. Invest in a center of excellence that can create business cases, measure ROI and cost optimization and track progress against goals.   

Implementation Automation with Blanc Labs 

At Blanc Labs, we understand that every financial and banking institution has unique needs and challenges when it comes to RPA implementation. That’s why we offer tailor-made RPA solutions to ensure seamless implementation for our clients.  

Our RPA systems are designed to be flexible and scalable, allowing our clients to start small and grow as needed. We provide end-to-end support, from process assessment and design to implementation and ongoing assistance, to ensure that our clients realize the full benefits of RPA. 

Booking a free consultation with us is the first step toward successful RPA implementation. Our team of experts work closely with each client to understand their specific requirements and goals to build a customized RPA solution to meet their needs. 

Articles

Banking Automation: The Complete Guide

Banks are process-driven organizations. Processes ensure accuracy and consistency across the organization. They are also repetitive. Over the past decade, the transition to digital systems has helped speed up and minimize repetitive tasks. But to prepare yourself for your customers’ growing expectations, increase scalability, and stay competitive, you need a complete banking automation solution. 

Systems powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) can help automate repetitive tasks, minimize human error, detect fraud, and more, at scale. You can deploy these technologies across various functions, from customer service to marketing. 

Many, if not all banks and credit unions, have introduced some form of automation into their operations. According to McKinsey, the potential value of AI and analytics for global banking could reach as high as $1 trillion. 

If you are curious about how you can become an AI-first bank, this guide explains how you can use banking automation to transform and prepare your processes for the future. 

What is Banking Automation? 

Banking automation involves automating tasks that previously required manual effort. 

For example, banks have conventionally required staff to check KYC documents manually. However, banking automation helps automatically scan and store KYC documents without manual intervention. 

Cost saving is generally one of RPA’s biggest advantages. 

According to a Gartner report, 80% of finance leaders have implemented or plan to implement RPA initiatives. 

The report highlights how RPA can lower your costs considerably in various ways. For example, RPA costs roughly a third of an offshore employee and a fifth of an onshore employee. 

You can make automation solutions even more intelligent by using RPA capabilities with technologies like AI, machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP). According to a McKinsey study, AI offers 50% incremental value over other analytics techniques for the banking industry. 

With that in mind, let’s look closely at RPA and how it works. 

Generative AI and Banking Automation

The latest trend in banking automation is the use of Generative AI.

According to Insider Intelligence’s ChatGPT and Generative AI in Banking report, generative AI will have the greatest impact on data-rich sectors such as: 

  • Retail banking and wealth: Generative AI can create more accurate NLP models and help automated systems process KYC documents and open accounts faster. 
  • SMB banking: Generative AI can help interpret non-numeric data, like business plans, more effectively. 
  • Commercial banking: Generative AI will enable customers to get answers about financial performance in complex scenarios. 
  • Investing banking and capital markets: Banks could use generative AI to stress test balance sheets with complex and illiquid assets. 

 

Banks are already using generative AI for financial reporting analysis & insight generation. According to Deloitte, some emerging banking areas where generative AI will play a key role include fraud simulation & detection and tax and compliance audit & scenario testing. 

What is RPA? 

Robotic process automation, or RPA, is a technology that performs actions generally performed by humans manually or with digital tools. 

Say you have a customer onboarding form in your banking software. You must fill it out each time a customer opens an account. You’re manually performing a task using a digital tool. 

RPA can perform this task without human effort. The difference? RPA does it more accurately and tirelessly—software robots don’t need eight hours of sleep or coffee breaks. 

You can implement RPA quickly, even on legacy systems that lack APIs or virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs). 

Implementing RPA can help improve employee satisfaction and productivity by eliminating the need to work on repetitive tasks. 

You can use RPA in banking operations for various purposes. 

For example, Credigy, a multinational financial organization, has an extensive due diligence process for consumer loans. 

The process was prone to errors and time-consuming. The company decided to implement RPA and automate the entire process, saving their staff and business partners plenty of time to focus on other, more valuable opportunities. 

The Need for Automation in Banking Operations 

Banks need automation to: 

  • Deliver better customer experiences 
  • Increase online security 
  • Improve decision making 
  • Empowering employees 

 

Below, are more reasons for your bank to automate operations. 

Why Banks Need Automation_Blanc Labs

To Deliver Faster, Personalized Customer Experiences 

New-gen customers want banks that can provide fast financial services online. 

The 2021 Digital Banking Consumer Survey from PwC found that 20%-25% of consumers prefer to open a new account digitally but can’t. 

Thanks to the pandemic, the shift to digital has picked up pace. A digital portal for banking is almost a non-negotiable requirement for most bank customers. 

In fact, 70% of Bank of America clients engage with the bank digitally. The bank’s newsroom reported that a whopping 7 million Bank of America customers used Erica, its chatbot, for the first time during the pandemic. 

A chatbot can provide personalized support to your customers. A level 3 AI chatbot can collect the required information from prospects that inquire about your bank’s services and offer personalized solutions. 

A chatbot is a great way for customers to get answers, but it’s also an excellent way to minimize traffic for your support desk. 

To Improve Cybersecurity 

Cybersecurity is expensive but is also the #1 risk for global banks according to EY. The survey found that cyber controls are the top priority for boosting operation resilience according to 65% of Chief Risk Officers (CROs) who responded to the survey. 

Using automation to create a cybersecurity framework and identity protection protocols can help differentiate your bank and potentially increase revenue. You can get more business from high-value individual accounts and accounts of large companies that expect banks to have a top-notch security framework. 

Automating cybersecurity helps take remedial actions faster. For example, the automated system can freeze compromised accounts in seconds and help fast-track fraud investigations. 

Of course, you don’t need to implement that automation system overnight. With cloud computing, you can start cybersecurity automation with a few priority accounts and scale over time. 

For Better Decision Making 

AI and ML algorithms can use data to provide deep insights into your client’s preferences, needs, and behavior patterns. 

These insights can improve decision-making across the board. For example, using these insights in your marketing strategy can help hyper-target marketing campaigns and improve returns. 

Moreover, these insights help deliver greater value to customers. By making faster and smarter decisions, you’ll be able to respond to customers’ fast-evolving needs with speed and precision. 

As a McKinsey article explains, banks that use ML to decide in real-time the best way to engage with customers can increase value in the following ways: 

  • Stronger customer acquisition: Automation and advanced analytics help improve customer experience. They help personalize marketing across the customer acquisition journey, which can improve conversions. 
  • Higher customer lifetime value: You can increase lifetime value by consistently engaging with customers to strengthen relationships across products and services. 
  • Lower operating costs: Banks can reduce costs by fully automating document processing, review, and decision-making. 
  • Lower credit risk: Banks can screen customers by analyzing behavior patterns that signal higher default or fraud risk. 

To Empower Employees 

As you digitize banking processes, you’ll need to train employees. Reskilling employees allows them to use automation technologies effectively, making their job easier. 

Your employees will have more time to focus on more strategic tasks by automating the mundane ones. This results in increased employee satisfaction and retention and allows them to focus on things that contribute to your topline — such as building customer relationships, innovating processes, and brainstorming ways to address customers’ most pressing issues. 

Challenges Faced by Banks Today 

Here are some key challenges that banks face today and how automation can help address them: 

Inefficient Manual Processes 

Manual processes are time and resource-intensive. 

According to the 2021 AML Banking Survey, relying on manual processes hampers a financial organization’s revenue-generating ability and exposes them to unnecessary risk. 

The simplest banking processes (like opening a new account) require multiple staff members to invest time. Moreover, the process generates paperwork you’ll need to store for compliance. 

While you complete the account opening process, the customer is on standby, waiting to start using their account. 

The slow service doesn’t exactly make a great impression. Customers want to be able to start using their accounts faster. If you’re too slow, they’ll find a bank that offers faster service. 

Automation helps shorten the time between account application and access. But that’s just one of the processes that automation can speed up. 

Technologies like RPA and AI can help fast-track processes across departments, including accounting, customer support, and marketing. 

Automation Without Integration 

Banks often implement multiple solutions to automate processes. However, often, these systems don’t integrate with other systems. 

For end-to-end automation, each process must relay the output to another system so the following process can use it as input. 

For example, you can automate KYC verification. But after verification, you also need to store these records in a database and link them with a new customer account. For this, your internal systems need to be integrated. 

Connecting banking systems requires APIs. Think of APIs as translators. They help two software solutions communicate with each other. A system can relay output to another system through an API, enabling end-to-end process automation. 

Increase in Competition 

Canadians want more competition in banking. The competition in banking will become fiercer over the next few years as the regulations become more accommodating of innovative fintech firms and open banking is introduced. 

An increase in competition will give customers more power. They’ll demand better service, 24×7 availability, and faster response times. 

You’ll need automation to achieve these objectives and make yourself stand out in the crowd. 

Benefits of Banking Automation_Blanc Labs

Benefits of Automation in Banking 

Once you invest in automation, you can expect to derive the following benefits: 

Improves Operational Efficiency 

An error-free automation system can supercharge operational efficiency. 

You’ll have to spend little to no time performing or monitoring the process. Moreover, you’ll notice fewer errors since the risk of human error is minimal when you’re using an automated system. 

Implementing automation allows you to operate legacy and new systems more resiliently by automating across your system infrastructure. This increases efficiency, consistency, and speed. 

Makes Processes Scalable 

Banks noticed how automation could be an excellent investment during the pandemic. As explained in a World Economic Forum (WEF) article: 

“Through the combination of a distinct data element with robotics process automation, it is possible to generate client documentation from management tools and archives at a high frequency. Due to its scalability, high volumes can be managed more efficiently.” 

The article provides the example of Swiss banks. During the pandemic, Swiss banks like UBS used credit robots to support the credit processing staff in approving requests. The support from robots helped UBS process over 24,000 applications in 24-hour operating mode. 

In addition to RPA, banks can also use technologies like optical character recognition (OCR) and intelligent document processing (IDP) to digitize physical mail and distribute it to remote teams. 

Cost Reduction 

Automation helps reduce costs on multiple fronts: 

a. Stationery 

80% of banks still favor some form of print statements. The cost of paper used for these statements can translate to a significant amount. Automation and digitization can eliminate the need to spend paper and store physical documents. 

b. Human error 

Human error can require reworks and cause delays in processing customer requests. Errors can result in direct losses (like a lost sale) and indirect losses (like a lost reputation). Minimizing errors can help reduce the cost associated with human error. 

c. Increased employee satisfaction 

You’ll spend less per unit with more productive employees. Automation can help improve employee satisfaction levels by allowing them to focus on their core duties. 

For example, a sales rep might want to grow by exploring new sales techniques and planning campaigns. They can focus on these tasks once you automate processes like preparing quotes and sales reports. 

Working on non-value-adding tasks like preparing a quote can make employees feel disengaged. When you automate these tasks, employees find work more fulfilling and are generally happier since they can focus on what they do best. 

Happiness makes people around 12% more productive, according to a recent study by the University of Warwick. 

As Professor Sgroi explains, “The driving force seems to be that happier workers use the time they have more effectively, increasing the pace at which they can work without sacrificing quality.” 

Customer Satisfaction 

Automation can help meet customer expectations in various ways. 

Speed is one of the most difficult expectations to meet for banks. You want to offer faster service but must also complete due diligence processes to stay compliant. That’s where automation helps. 

61% of customers feel a quick resolution is vital to customer service. As a bank, you need to be able to answer your customers’ questions fast. 

How fast? Ideally, in real-time. 

A level 3 AI chatbot can help provide real-time, personalized responses to your customers’ questions. 

In addition to real-time support, modern customers also demand fast service. For example, customers should be able to open a bank account fast once they submit the documents. You can achieve this by automating document processing and KYC verification. 

Better Risk Management 

Automation can help minimize operational, compliance, and fraud risk. 

Since little to no manual effort is involved in an automated system, your operations will almost always run error-free. 

You can also automate compliance processes. For example, you can add validation checkpoints to ensure the system catches any data irregularities before you submit the data to a regulatory authority. 

Automation can help minimize fraud risk too. Using AI and ML can help flag suspicious activities and trigger alerts. As this study by Deloitte explains:

“Machine learning can also analyze big data more efficiently, build statistical models quickly, and react to new suspicious behaviors faster.” 

Using traditional methods (like RPA) for fraud detection requires creating manual rules. RPA works well in a structured data environment. But given the high volume of complex data in banking, you’ll need ML systems for fraud detection. 

Blanc Labs’ Banking Automation Solutions 

Blanc Labs helps banks, credit unions, and Fintechs automate their processes. We tailor-make automation tools and systems based on your needs. Our systems take work off your plate and supercharge process efficiency. 

Our team deploys technologies like RPA, AI, and ML to automate your processes. We integrate these systems (and your existing systems) to allow frictionless data exchange. 

Book a discovery call to learn more about how automation can drive efficiency and gains at your bank. 

Articles

5 Benefits of Open Banking APIs

Benefits of Open Banking APIs in Canada_Blanc Labs

Open banking APIs (application programming interfaces) offer a wide range of benefits for a modern financial institution, from increasing revenue to reducing fraud risk. 

Open banking is finding its way into Canada with the government working hard to set regulations by the tentative launch date of January 2024.  

In the meantime, financial institutions like yours should start preparing. When open banking is introduced to the public, you should be in a position to roll out products and services faster than competitors and with minimal friction. 

Below, we explain the meaning of APIs, the state of open banking in Canada, and how exactly open banking APIs can help your business. 

What is Open Banking? 

Open banking refers to using APIs to access financial data by third parties in a secure manner. 

Customers expect faster, one-stop banking services. So far, customers have relied on third-party services that use screen scraping for non-core banking services like budgeting and financial decision-making. 

Screen scraping leaves your customers vulnerable to multiple types of online threats. In a world rampant with cybercrime, your customers want a safer alternative, and that’s where open banking offers value. 

With open banking, you can securely allow third parties to access your financial data. For example, suppose a fintech app offers AI-based investment advice. 

To offer advice, it needs to look at your current portfolio. You can use open banking to allow the app to access your financial data securely without having to use screen scraping. 

This model offers all parties a benefit — you can use the app faster, the fintech can operate with the bank’s license, and the bank can charge a fee for the customer data. 

Open Banking in Canada 

Open banking is currently unavailable in Canada. The government is developing a roadmap to introduce open banking in Canada safely. 

According to the Final Report from the Advisory Committee on Open Banking, the government has established four groups to provide input on the four fundamental aspects of the open banking framework—accreditation, liability, privacy, and security. 

The original target date to introduce open banking was January 2023. However, the committee is yet to reach a consensus on multiple aspects. 

The Canadian government may take a while to implement open banking. But we’ll likely see key developments in the implementation process over the next few months.  

The government has appointed Abraham Tachjian to develop the open banking framework for Canada. 

Benefits of Open Banking APIs 

While you wait for open banking regulations to become available in Canada, it’s best to prepare your API ecosystem, so you’re ready for open banking when it’s introduced. 

Once you have a mature open banking API ecosystem that’s operational, you’ll benefit in the following ways: 

Increased Revenue 

As a financial institution, you can use open banking APIs to increase revenue in one or more of the following ways: 

  • Partnering with Fintechs offering innovative solutions: You can partner with Fintechs to offer innovative solutions without creating, managing, or innovating products and services in-house. The partnership allows you to offer services your customers expect and improve their end-to-end journey. Of course, these services also create new revenue streams for you. 
  • Selling to Fintechs: As a bank, you can add another revenue source by providing banking-as-a-service (BaaS), where third parties can connect to your database using APIs for a fee. Third parties can use this data to provide value-add services in addition to what regulators mandate. 
  • Optimize your marketing campaigns based on user data: Open banking, combined with data aggregation, provides deeper insights into customers’ behavior and choices. These insights enable you to position your products better and run personalized marketing campaigns, which can increase your overall revenue. 

 

Banking as a Service (BaaS) 

Open banking APIs and Banking-as-a-Service are often used interchangeably. 

However, they’re fundamentally different. BaaS is a business model where banks integrate their services into a third-party’s product or service. 

Fintechs and non-financial companies (NFCs) use BaaS to offer customers better digital banking services, like one-minute loan approvals, without getting their own banking license. This is made possible through open banking APIs. 

BaaS is quickly gaining popularity as customer dissatisfaction with banks’ existing services grow. According to Delloite, 2x ROAA (return on average assets) for banks focused on BaaS offerings. 

A few ways you can monetize by proving BaaS include: 

  • Providing your banking license, technology, and products to other banks, non-financial companies (NFCs), and aggregators. 
  • You can partner with a distributor with excellent end-user relationships to offer innovative financial solutions. 
  • You can partner with an aggregator who acts as a provider-aggregator to provide an out-of-the-box solution by coupling the capabilities of multiple vendors. 

 

Payment as a Service (PaaS) 

Open banking APIs allow you to build faster, more secure bank rails. Once you implement open banking, you can enable users to make direct payments seamlessly without entering card details. 

As a bank, you can use open banking APIs to increase payments’ transparency and scalability by leveraging individual transactions and bi-directional processing. 

With open banking APIs, you can upscale your current payment methods like ACH (Automatic Clearing House Network) and wire transfers. APIs will also enable you to offer modern payment methods like Real-Time Payments (RTPs) and Pay-By-Bank when they become available in Canada. 

Open banking also facilitates payment initiation service (PIS). When a merchant partners with a licensed third party, the third party can initiate a payment on behalf of a customer’s bank account using PIS. 

PIS doesn’t require the customer or merchant to share any sensitive information. The customer simply approves a payment via the banking app with a secret pin or biometric authentication. 

Just like any account-to-account transfer, the money is transferred directly to the merchant’s account within seconds. 

Improved Customer Engagement 

Open banking APIs improve customer engagement by streamlining the onboarding process and offering a one-stop solution for multiple needs. 

For example, open banking APIs can allow biometric logins and authentication to minimize the time it takes your customer to access the account. Your users will be able to complete tasks faster without compromising data security. 

With Canadians worried more than ever about the cost of living crisis in Canada, they’re carefully observing their money. 

Typically, they’d need to source information from individual sources to get a full picture of their financial status in order to make sound financial decisions. 

Open banking APIs can simplify the process by allowing third-party apps to automatically aggregate this information into a single app, improving customer engagement. 

Reduced Risk of Fraud 

Open banking APIs provide access to customer data, allowing more accurate risk profiling. Access to customer data allows incorporating verified identity information, account balances, and transaction patterns into your risk models. 

The UK, where open banking has been available since 2018, has reduced card fraud significantly. In 2021, the UK reduced the losses from card fraud by an impressive £49.2 million. 

The following four things make open banking payments safer: 

  • Each payment uses strong customer authentication (SCA), which was introduced as a requirement in Europe by the revised Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) for ecommerce transactions in 2019. 
  • No sensitive information is required for any open banking use case. 
  • APIs pre-populate payment information. 
  • Open banking providers take care of onboarding the merchants as well as carrying out the necessary due diligence. 

Read More: Open Banking in Canada: How Banks and Customers Can Benefit

Implementing Open Banking APIs with Blanc Labs 

Familiarizing yourself with open banking APIs is critical to ensure you’re equipped with the right knowledge and tools when open banking becomes available in Canada. 

The problem? It can feel daunting. Partnering with the right team can make the process a whole lot easier. 

Blanc Labs, in partnership with Axway and Mulesoft, can help you build a robust open banking API ecosystem. We can answer any questions you have and take care of the end-to-end implementation process.

Book a discovery call with Blanc Labs to learn more about open banking APIs. 

Articles

What is API Management?

What is API Management_Blanc Labs
Illustration by Storyset

Application Programming Interface (API) management has become an increasingly important aspect of modern business operations. With the advent of cloud computing and the need for digital transformation, enterprises are using APIs to enhance their existing applications, develop new applications, and drive innovation. 

According to a study by Forbes, firms that used APIs saw 12.7% growth in their market capitalization over a period of four years. But using APIs is one thing and having an API strategy in place that can enable your business goals is another. 

Proper management of APIs is imperative to support smooth business functioning. From startups to large enterprises, API management has become a critical component for businesses to remain competitive and meet the changing needs of their customers. 

 Whether you are a financial services provider looking to securely integrate third-party services, a retail giant seeking to improve your e-commerce platform, or a healthcare organization seeking to securely exchange medical data, API management can help you achieve your business objectives.   

API Management Components

API management components are the building blocks that make up a comprehensive API management solution. These components work together to enable organizations to effectively manage their APIs and deliver value to their customers and partners. The primary components of API management include: 

API Gateway 

The API gateway is the component that sits at the front end of the API management architecture, acting as a traffic cop for incoming API requests. The API gateway is responsible for routing API requests to the appropriate backend services, applying security and access controls, and transforming data between different formats. The gateway also provides features such as caching, rate limiting, and request and response transformations. 

Developer Portal 

The developer portal is a  platform that provides developers with the information and tools they need to consume and build applications using your APIs. A good developer portal includes detailed documentation, code samples, forums, and tools for testing and debugging. The developer portal is a key component of API management as it helps to foster a community of developers who can help you drive adoption and engagement with your APIs. 

Reporting and Continuous Improvement

Reporting and continuous improvement are essential components of API management as they help organizations understand how their APIs are used, identify improvement areas, and make data-driven decisions about their API strategies. With the help of real-time analytics and usage reports, organizations can track key metrics such as API request volumes, response times, and error rates. This information can then be used to continuously improve the API management process and deliver a better experience to developers and end-users. 

API Lifecycle Management 

API lifecycle management is the process of managing the entire life cycle of an API, from design and development to retirement and deprecation. This includes tasks such as versioning, testing, and publishing APIs, as well as managing security and access controls. API lifecycle management helps to ensure that APIs are managed in a consistent and organized manner, enabling organizations to respond quickly to changing business requirements and deliver value to their customers and partners. 

Benefits of an API Management Platform

API management platforms provide a number of benefits to organizations that are looking to leverage APIs to drive innovation and growth. Some of the key benefits include: 

Improved Security 

APIs provide businesses with various benefits such as accessing enterprise services from different devices, promoting innovation, and creating new revenue streams. However, using APIs can also pose risks to data security, which is why it is crucial to protect them with an API manager. API management platforms are essential to ensure the security of APIs as they monitor their usage and implement security protocols such as JWT, OpenID and OAuth. Additionally, API management platforms can provide extra security benefits by controlling access to applications. 

Increased Agility 

API management platforms allow organizations to quickly and easily expose their existing systems and services as APIs. This enables organizations to respond quickly to changing business requirements and create new opportunities for growth and innovation. With the ability to easily manage and scale APIs, organizations can quickly and easily adapt to changing business needs.

A good example of this is the Emirates NBD Bank. In an interview with McKinsey, senior bank executives explained how they were able to achieve effectiveness and efficiency by shifting to APIs. “We have enabled several strategic business initiatives as a result. One example is our digital onboarding, which is available on mobile phones for self-service and via tablet for assistance in our branches. “We have onboarded more than 100,000 customers with our new process, doing up to 85 percent with straight-through processing in less than ten minutes,” said Neeraj Makin, group head of international and group strategy. Today, the bank offers more than 800 microservices and have seen over a million interactions in the last two years. 

Improved Developer Experience 

API management platforms provide a centralized location for developers to access and use APIs. With features such as detailed documentation, code samples, and testing tools, API management platforms make it easy for developers to consume and build applications using your APIs. This helps to drive adoption and engagement with your APIs, which can lead to increased revenue and more opportunities for innovation. 

Better Monitoring and Analytics 

API management platforms provide real-time monitoring and analytics capabilities, allowing organizations to track the usage and performance of their APIs. This information can be used to identify areas for improvement, optimize performance, and make data-driven decisions about your API strategy. With a better understanding of how your APIs are being used, you can make informed decisions about how to optimize your API offerings and deliver a better experience to your customers and partners. 

Monetization Opportunities 

API management platforms provide organizations with the tools and capabilities to monetize their APIs. With features such as billing, usage tracking, and rate limiting, organizations can set pricing and usage policies for their APIs, creating new revenue streams and driving growth. 

Top Use Cases for API Management 

The global API management market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 34.5% and reach $41.5 billion by 2031. API management has a wide range of use cases across various industries and sectors. A few of the major use cases are: 

Digital Transformation Initiatives 

API management is an essential component of digital transformation initiatives as it allows organizations to expose their existing systems and services as APIs. This enables organizations to quickly and easily create new applications and services, and drive innovation in a fast-changing digital landscape. With the ability to manage and scale APIs, organizations can respond quickly to changing business requirements and drive growth. 

Open Banking 

Open banking is an emerging trend that is transforming the financial services industry. With open banking, financial institutions can securely share their customer data with third-party providers, enabling new financial products and services to be created. API management is a critical component of open banking as it provides a secure and controlled environment for exchanging financial data, helping to ensure that customer data is protected and that transactions are compliant with regulatory requirements. 

Read more: What is Open Banking and is it available in Canada?

Data Security  

Data security is a critical concern for organizations in a wide range of industries. With API management, organizations can secure their APIs and the sensitive data they carry with features such as authentication, authorization, and encryption. This helps to protect sensitive information and ensures that data is transmitted securely, reducing the risk of data breaches and protecting the reputation of your organization. 

Compliance 

Compliance is an important consideration for organizations in regulated industries such as healthcare and finance. With API management, organizations can ensure that their APIs are compliant with regulatory requirements, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). This helps organizations minimize their risk of non-compliance and reduces the risk of costly penalties. 

Custom API Management Solutions from Blanc Labs 

At Blanc Labs, we understand the unique needs and requirements of our clients, and we offer custom API management solutions that are tailored to meet your specific needs. Our API management solutions are designed to provide enterprise organizations with the tools and capabilities they need to drive their digital transformation initiatives, secure their data, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. 

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of API management and how Blanc Labs can help you achieve your goals, we encourage you to book a discovery call with our team. Our experienced consultants will work with you to understand your needs and provide you with a customized solution that is tailored to meet your specific requirements. 

Make the most of your API Strategy. Talk to an Expert.

Articles

What is Open Banking and Is It Available in Canada? 

What is Open Banking in Canada_Blanc Labs
Illustration by Storyset

If you’re a bank or financial institution, you should know what open banking is. Open banking consolidates your customers’ financial information. It allows them to access their financial data via a single banking or third-party app, allowing them to make smarter and faster financial decisions. 

This guide explains open banking, how it works, and its benefits.

What Does Open Banking Mean?

Open banking is a secure framework that facilitates the exchange of financial data between financial institutions and third parties through APIs (application programing interface). 

Think about the last time you wanted to check your investment portfolio. You probably had to log into multiple online portals and bank accounts to get financial information. 

Open banking (also known as consumer-directed or consumer-led banking) can shorten this process to a few minutes by bringing all the information to a single dashboard. 

When you try to access financial information via a fintech app with open banking, your bank transmits data via a secure online channel to the app. More importantly, you don’t need to provide login credentials when using open banking. 

As you can imagine, being able to pull financial data securely from banks and other institutions will allow fintechs and the banks themselves to develop innovative products that enable Canadians to manage finances more effectively. 

How Open Banking Works 

Here is a typical scenario for how open banking works: 

  1. A bank’s customer downloads a fintech app to manage finances and wants to start using it. 
  2. The app needs to access financial data, so it prompts the customer to link their bank accounts. 
  3. The customer authorizes the bank to securely share financial data with the app. 
  4. The bank transmits customer data through a secured online channel. 
  5. The app provides financial insights and recommendations. 

Isn’t that how apps operate anyway? 

Well, yes, except for one key difference. Traditionally, when a person links an app to their bank account, it uses screen scraping and the person’s login credentials to log into it and pull financial data. 

On the other hand, open banking uses APIs (application programming interfaces). In simple terms, APIs allow two systems (the banking system and the third-party app, in this case) to communicate and exchange information securely. 

Banks or financial institutions are responsible for building, implementing and managing the APIs that will allow customers to connect their accounts with new and innovative apps. 

Banks need to find the right API management platform and be mindful of some common open banking API challenges. Alternatively, you can book a discovery call with us, and we’ll take care of the technical aspect of implementing open banking. 

Screen scraping is prone to privacy and security risks since you can’t control how the fintech stores or uses your data. The practice can also violate your bank’s electronic access agreement (EAA), which frees the bank of any liability in case of an unauthorized transaction in your account. 

Screen scraping will likely become obsolete once open banking becomes available in Canada.  

What is Screen Scraping? 

Screen scraping is the process of capturing data present on a screen — from a webpage, document, or app — for using it in another system or app. 

It’s generally used by apps that need to extract data from legacy systems that lack an API management system or any other source of data extraction. 

Data accessed by apps through screen scraping isn’t regulated. Without a standardized system, all third parties use their own level of security and approach to handling data. 

Screen scraping platforms also store login credentials as text strings. The lack of encryption leaves your data vulnerable to attacks from hackers. 

Unfortunately, an estimated four million Canadians are accessing banking-style services via screen scraping. The growing popularity of financial planning apps strongly calls for a more secure, regulated framework like open banking. 

However, open banking still has its limitations. For example, the bank might securely transmit the information to a third party, but if someone hacks the app itself, they might steal your data. So even though open banking is safer than screen scraping, it’s not fully secure. 

Benefits of Open Banking 

The implementation of open banking in Canada will benefit both you and your customers. 

Here are four ways open banking will benefit your customers: 

  • Gives an overview: Open banking provides a secure framework to pull information from your bank accounts, credit cards, investment partners, and other financial institutions. An open banking app can consolidate all your financial data and provide a complete overview in one place without switching between websites and manually extracting information. 
  • Allows shopping around for the best deal: Comparing deals for personal loans, credit cards, or mortgages requires careful research. A comparison app using open banking can speed up the process and help you find the best deal. Apps can also help you understand how likely you are to qualify if you apply for a loan based on your financial information. 
  • Speeds up the application process: Applying for loans or credit requires submitting information, including your financial statements and KYC documents. Instead of manually submitting these documents, an app can store them for you and submit them as necessary when applying for a loan or opening an investment account. 
  • Helps make smarter financial decisions: Fintech apps can use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to create financial roadmaps based on your financial data. You can use these apps to create a budget, understand your spending habits, and find the best investment options based on your risk appetite. Apps may also project cash flows based on your budget and financial obligations so that you can estimate the available balance in your account at the end of each month. 

 

Here are four ways open banking benefits you as a bank or financial institution: 

  • Collaborate with third parties: Collaborating with third-party apps can help you explore data-sharing agreements and identify new opportunities. You can streamline processes and offer more related services to stay ahead of the competition. 
  • Prepare for the future: Open banking isn’t available in Canada, but it soon will be. Over time, your customers will likely demand the privacy and security that open banking offers. As data privacy laws evolve, open banking will ensure you’re in an excellent position to adapt to changes. Moreover, quickly becoming compliant with evolving rules without interrupting service improves customer experience. 
  • Increase market share: Your customers crave convenience. Allowing them to consolidate financial information securely ensures excellent customer experience. Offering open banking is critical to fulfilling your customer’s demands. Over time, you might even lose market share by not offering open banking. 
  • Lower operating costs: Open banking ensures banks’ data lives in a centralized, digitally accessible location. This minimizes data silos and facilitates automation. Automating banking processes like mortgage underwriting allows you to reduce operating costs. 

Read more: Open Banking in Canada: How Banks and Customers Can Benefit

Open Banking in Canada 

While open banking is currently unavailable in Canada, it’s available in countries like the UK and Australia. 

The Canadian government is working on safely implementing open banking in Canada. The government appointed Abraham Tachjian to lead Canada’s open banking framework development initiative in March 2022. 

According to the Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Open Banking, the government had set a target to make open banking operational by January 2023, but implementation is still under process. 

However, the government is committed to implementing open banking at the earliest and realizes the benefits it can offer to Canadians. 

For example, when asked about how open banking can address the challenges facing BIPOC Canadians, small businesses, and rural/remote communities, Tachijan explained: 

“While Canada’s banking framework aims to ensure all Canadians have access to basic bank accounts, some Canadians may be underbanked. Open Banking creates the opportunity for consumer-led banking, which gives consumers and businesses greater control and protection over their financial data, as well as more transparency on how it’s used.” 

While the government lays the groundwork to implement open banking, you should ensure you have everything set up to offer customers open banking soon after it becomes available in Canada. 

Is Your Financial Institution Ready for Open Banking? 

Open banking is about to transform the financial services industry. Your customers will have the flexibility to choose how they interact with your bank, and your competitors will have the option to offer innovative solutions. 

Implementing open banking can feel daunting, but partnering with the right team can simplify the process. 

Blanc Labs helps banks implement open banking from scratch. Book a discovery call  to learn more about our open banking solutions.  

News

Blanc Labs Inc. receives SOC 2 Type I certification

Posted on
Blanc Labs SOC2 Type 1 certification

Blanc Labs, a leader in enterprise-level digital transformations, today announced it has achieved SOC 2 Type I compliance as verified by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). This third-party industry validation demonstrates to Blanc Labs’ current and future customers that the data stored with Blanc Labs is secure and compliant with industry leading standards.  

The certification is the result of an extensive audit conducted by Prescient Assurance, a recognized leader in security and compliance attestation for B2B SaaS companies and service organizations controls worldwide. Blanc Labs’ IT infrastructure was evaluated according to the Security, Availability, Confidentiality, Processing Integrity and Privacy criteria established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) for Service Organizations also known as SSAE 18. By achieving an unqualified opinion on its SOC 2 Type I audit report, Blanc Labs has confirmed to customers that they manage their customer data with the most rigorous security and compliance protocols available.  

“We are proud to receive this certification,” said Hamid Akbari, CEO of Blanc Labs. “This proves our commitment to providing our customers with the highest data security standard available today.”  

SOC 2 Type I certification is an essential assurance for organizations operating in the digital space that their systems, processes, and operations meet the highest security standards. By obtaining SOC 2 certification, companies are able to demonstrate their commitment to implementing comprehensive security measures and protecting customer data. Furthermore, organizations that receive SOC 2 Type I certification also have the opportunity to increase customer confidence in their systems and processes.  

“Our customers’ peace of mind regarding data security is our top priority,” added Akbari. “As a technology company focused on developing innovative solutions, we believe this certification reinforces our efforts to ensure that our financial services and healthcare customers can trust us with their most sensitive information.”   

 

About Blanc Labs   

Blanc Labs offers technology solutions that help enterprises become ready for the future. Blanc Labs has developed expertise and bespoke solutions in a wide variety of applications, including financial services, healthcare, enterprise productivity, and customer experience, to help companies rapidly deliver on their digital initiatives. Headquartered in Toronto, Blanc Labs serves the Americas through operations in Toronto, New York, Bogota, and Buenos Aires. For more information, visit www.blanclabs.com  

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