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The global once-in-a-century pandemic has hit every nook and corner of the world, not sparing any business of size and industry. The average American’s economic health is in jeopardy, and the government comes to the rescue with the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), with over $300 billion to be disbursed as loans to help businesses pay their employees in this economic crisis.
Small banks and credit unions played a vital part in the quick loan disbursal, and thanks to Robotic Process Automation, were able to get the mammoth job done, with almost zero errors and delays. Whenever there is a business challenge that affects productivity and efficiency, technology and automation is the solution, as is apparent from this case.
The super-fast, intelligent, and error-free processing of RPA benefits not only the borrower, but also the banks. PPP loans are risk-free government-provided funds; the more the banks loan out, the more profit they make. In fact, with an RPA bot in-place, financial institutions can process 30 times faster, and three times more than their usual application numbers.
PPP reporting and Robotic Process Automation
These financial institutions don’t just process the applications, handout the loans, and get their piece of the pie. Every penny is to be accounted for. If processing the loan applications is just one part of the job, the other half of it is more of a burden. The banks have to report to the Federal Reserve, not just once but every month, until the loan amount is paid in full for every loan they have disbursed. And this needs serious manpower. Or in this case, “bot power.”
Without the help of RPA bots, banks have to sift through the thousands of loans that have been disbursed, and create & send out reports for each one of them to the Federal Reserve – a significant task that takes a considerable number of manhours. Banks either have to allocate internal resources to handle the gargantuan task, or hire new employees, which is seldom budgeted, and practically impossible because of the fluctuating need for such resources.
For example, an SBA preferred lender, based out of Texas manages 33 loan pools with several PPP loans disbursed under each pool. The more they lend, the more reporting comes with it. For each loan pool, payment reports have to be submitted to the Federal Reserve every month. Processing the report for each loan pool would take approximately 10-15 min, adding up to almost 6 – 8 hours for processing all loan pools every month, assuming the bank has adequate manpower, at the time the reports are done.
With RPA bots, time-to-completion of the entire process was reduced from 6 – 8 hours to less than 5 minutes.
The entire reporting process includes:
- Classification of loan pools from consolidated BA report generated periodically
- Validation with original report pledged to Federal Reserve
- Calculating the current outstanding balance for each loan pool
- Preparation of payment report based on template and instructions shared by the Federal Reserve
- Sending emails with payment reports for each loan pool
The reporting, as you’d be able to understand, is predominantly a repetitive task that includes data validation, data consolidation, templatized report creation, and email triggering. But, just like the PPP loan application processing, the PPP reporting can also be automated using, you guessed it, RPA bots.
RPA bots eliminate human interference and delays in the process to a great extent, along with an 80% total cost savings.
How RPA automated the PPP loan payment report
- When the process owner triggers the bot, the bot processes all activities related to data validation, including opening and scanning email and loan records.
- The bot correlates payments and past-due data and generates payment reports with all the essential loan details.
- The bot automatically sends emails with the generated payment reports to the borrower and lender management.
- Finally, the bot emails a summary of the processed reports to the process owner.
- The entire process is done for each loan pool separately.
The result – 80 times faster task completion with up to 95% reduction in manual work, data validation, and compilation errors.
Conclusion
According to a Deloitte survey, the ROI of a good RPA initiative is less than 12 months. But the benefits of implementing one are everlasting. RPA has enabled the SBA-backed financial institutions to fulfill the actual purpose of the PPP loans, even amidst the race against time, saving so many businesses and families from total financial meltdown during this economic slump.
RPA is the need of the hour, and one quick call with our process automation experts can transform your PPP loan reporting capabilities like never before.
Why wait? Get started with RPA now!
