Bank automation demand spurs IBM-fintech partnership

The global robotic process automation market is expected to reach nearly $9 billion in five years — and banks will make a large part of that market as they explore how the tech can be used in their day-to-day operations.

The growing opportunity has led to a partnership between IBM and UiPath, an RPA company valued at $3 billion after its latest round of financing of $40 million.

The tech giant is adding the vendor to its digital business automation platform, recognizing many companies are looking for such machine learning tech that can work on a large scale.

“By integrating the core RPA technology of UiPath with IBM Digital Business Automation capabilities, customers can get the benefits of compliance and scale without any technical integration efforts,” Kramer Reeves, director of marketing for IBM automation, said in a blog post. “We wanted to ensure that technical skill gaps didn’t get in the way of building enterprise-class automation applications.”

Banks often use RPA to assist in integrating acquisitions or mergers. Many financial services firms are interested in making front-end processes more efficient with human oversight or back-end processes managed continuously, such as document processing, without any human involvement.

“UiPath and IBM agree that the next generation of successful and innovative companies are adopting an ‘Automation First’ mindset,” the startup wrote in a blog post. “Organizations implementing RPA are augmenting their workforce with software robots that automate the routine, mundane and repetitive tasks to free people up to focus on higher order, more strategic work and more time to be creative.”

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