By Anna Convery,CMO and EVP,
OpenSpan
On October 3, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will implement the Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure, also known as the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures (TRID) regulation.
It brings guidelines that will impact how loans are processed and presented to customers at banks and mortgage lenders nationwide.
TRID will also dramatically increase the amount of work associated with each loan considered and processed. Since the announcement of TRID regulations, many financial institutions have scrambled to put the resources and systems needed in place before the deadline.
A survey conducted at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual technology conference earlier this year found that two thirds of the lenders polled have hired additional staff or outsourced labor specifically to prepare for the new regulations.
There is an alternative to bringing on new staff. Improvements in information technology are changing the way financial institutions process and share data, both internally and with customers. This enterprise transformation leverages new automation processes that increase revenue, diminish operational costs, reduce human error, save time for both employees and customers and more easily address regulatory guidelines.
In the right situation, automation solutions can provide banks or credit unions a very cost-effective way to streamline cumbersome processes and simplify the way employees work. Because work processes in the banking industry tend to be repetitive and manual, automation solutions are a plausible method to eliminate many of the required steps by automating them, which then in turn enables the employees to focus on performing higher value activities.
Automation Can Make Compliance Easier and Faster
In many ways, both robotic and desktop automation can meet compliance needs more efficiently than new staff or manual processes. A well implemented program can monitor the desktop and enterprise-wide network environment to intercept events spanning multiple applications and then actively alert managers, change application behavior, and assist in business process improvement, adherence, and compliance. It can also help eliminate human error and significantly speed up many mundane tasks, directly addressing new TRID regulatory needs.
A few of the more common advantages of automation include:
Recognizing prohibited actions and triggering automated restrictions and reports
Automation can monitor both activities including desktop options, and then trigger alerts or automation actions based on specific criteria. As an example, a system can be set up to identify any time Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (DSS) restricted data, such as validation codes, are used and tag those instances for review.
 Non-invasively restricting screens and fields
A system can be used to augment existing security protocols by selectively restricting or modifying what is displayed on an employee’s computer screen. For example, it can easily and automatically remove personal computer data from bank teller interfaces. This process reduces the chance of malfeasance or accidental information leaks.
Ensuring timely business process completion
When processing a loan or other business transaction, it is important that every disparate system and application complete each task as efficiently and timely as possible. Robotic automation can accomplish this goal without the need for human interaction, significantly reducing processing time and potential for error.
For example, a system can easily access the proper mandatory legal and regulatory advisories for a given transaction, ensuring that they have been properly recorded and communicated to the customer.
Initiating documentation or provisioning workflow
Many transactions, particularly financial, require that physical letters or forms be generated, printed, emailed, faxed or mailed to the customer. Robotic and desktop automation solutions can be used to produce and send required fulfilment documentation or provisioning materials based on an agent or event trigger.
Monitoring and controlling account interfaces
Automation systems can alert management of or even stop potential compliance violations from being executed by the user, no matter whether accidental or deliberate.
Validating data in real time
With more employees and tighter deadlines added to the mix, the chance of human error increases exponentially. Robotic and desktop automation can ensure that information entered is both current and accurate. Examples include validation of addresses and credit scores from external agencies that are returned to an agent in real time.
Synchronizing data between desktop applications and enterprise systems
Finally, robotic and desktop automation can ensure that every application and independent computer station is using the right, and most up to date, information possible. If an agent updates information in one window, data can be pushed to all other relevant applications automatically.
 In Conclusion
To meet new regulations, such as those outlined in the new TRID guidelines, automation is a viable and more cost-effective alternative to hiring new staff. In addition to providing greater oversight and reducing the likelihood of errors, it can significantly reduce the average operation time and cost of each loan or other business interaction.
