随着银行业步入人机共存、多方交互、跨界协同的新时代，业务创新和数字化转型升级的需求日渐强烈，通过引入新技术助推服务升级已成为银行业的一大共识。广发银行坚定地以“数字广发”为金融科技战略发展目标，于2018年引入机器人流程自动化(Robotic Process Automation，RPA)技术，为传统业务的发展注入新的生机与活力。
凭借准确可靠、运行稳定、安全合规的特点，RPA已成为一项应用广泛、市场领先的人工智能技术，基于模拟人工与计算机系统交互的方式，迭代式优化原有操作流程。同时，RPA技术经短期调试配置后即可投产使用，使得其与传统研发技术形成良性协同互补。RPA技术的应用既可以减少人工反复性执行的工作量，又能够提高业务运转的速度及效率，降低日常人工成本，为广发银行优质高效发展奠定了坚实的基础。
一、RPA应用概况
截至2022年8月，广发银行已有39个RPA机器人在全行投入使用，覆盖17个总行部门、19家分行以及信用卡中心，共计完成273项RPA流程改造，每月可替代人工耗时逾4.31万小时。RPA应用场景遍及数据/报表处理、科目管理/账务核对、财务会计、发票报账、账户管理、风险管理、公文处理等多个业务领域。
1. 提升管理质量，防控合规风险
随着人民银行对银行结算账户的监管日益严格，商业银行因各类账户迟报、漏报、报送信息错误等问题屡被通报、处罚。广发银行将RPA技术广泛应用于企业结算账户开户、销户、转久悬账户报送、个人结算账户报送以及同业结算账户自查报送工作，有效保障了账户报备的及时性和一致性，对账务/科目核对等也发挥了重要作用。
在账户管理领域，广发银行累计有9项账户管理工作实现RPA应用，每月累计释放分行人工报送/查询工时约3324小时。
在科目管理领域，广发银行在科目对账自动化方面实现了13项子流程RPA应用，每月累计释放总分行人工工时约5727.5小时。
2. 免除人工差错，防范操作风险
对于数据安全、核对关系和操作时效要求较高的业务，RPA技术可模拟人机交互行为，代替人工处理标准化的工作任务，将手工操作步骤以脚本的形式进行固化，有效避免人工差错、延时等问题，从而提升业务准确性与运行稳定性。广发银行在数据处理等方面共应用25项RPA功能，每月累计释放总分行人工工时约559.1小时。
3. 释放人力资源，降低人工成本
对于高频、标准、作业规律、重复性高的人工操作事项，RPA方案可极大减少低价值的人力占用，使得员工有机会投入到高附加值工作中去。在批量处理领域，广发银行应用RPA实现了贷款信息批量查询、押品信息批量录入、高端客户批量排查功能，在押品信息批量录入RPA应用全行推广后，预计3项RPA应用每月可累计释放总分行人工工时达13808小时。
4. 提升管理效率，及时进行监测
广发银行总分行业务管理人员日常需要开展大量的时效监督、资金监测、数据监控等工作，RPA技术可为业务逻辑明确、可归纳或标准化的工作提供高效的自动化解决方案，且开发实施周期较短，支持迅速上线应用，满足业务规则灵活调配的需要，RPA机器人成为广发银行各机构业务管理的智能助手。
5. 非侵入式技术，解决交互难题
RPA技术能够较好地解决业务操作跨内外网系统、系统间数据暂不能直连或开放接口等系统开发与信息交互难题，广泛应用于跨行内或行外多个系统数据集成的流程，与传统科技优势互补，敏捷服务业务发展，助力数字化转型。
二、RPA应用未来规划
当前，数字技术重塑了工作模式与工作方法，RPA技术应用已基本覆盖广发银行各业务板块与部分试点分行，全行参与度逐渐提高，员工自动化转型意识强烈。对于银行而言，RPA技术不仅具有降本提效、释放人力资源、优化成本结构等价值，还可帮助银行重构流程链路、优化组织能力。因此，广发银行结合数字化时代趋势与经营管理实际情况，在稳中求进的同时持续加强科技投入，全面推进数字化转型，采用“定点突破”的方式优先在财务资金管理、研发赋能、分行组织机构这三个领域推广应用RPA技术(如图1所示)，同时秉持“全行渗透”的思维在业务、工作及技术三个层面逐级贯穿，使金融服务接入更多新型场景，进一步提高各类业务的集中运营能力，进而在全行拓展RPA技术的应用深度和范畴，推动各业务部门对高频重复、标准化、大批量的工作任务进行流程重构及自动化升级，打造轻运营的管理新业态。
1. 财务资金管理领域
RPA技术是企业财务共享中心数字化转型的重要工具。财务共享中心要进行较多的流程固化和集团后台系统的操作，包括海量重复性高、流程化明显的低附加值工作，需要重复地进行信息操作和数据核算，RPA财务机器人在该类工作中具有一定的发展空间。
一是单据审核。费用单据审核的基础工作内容繁杂，财务人员需人工校验审批流程，手动点击、放大影像查看发票，逐条核对单据信息，并出具审批意见。该工作标准化程度较高，应用RPA辅助单据审核，一方面能够提升单笔业务处理效率，另一方面可预知合规风险，释放人力资源。
二是资金审单。资金付款单的准确性、规范性影响资金安全，通常需要人工逐条核对相关划拨单、付款单的关键信息，诸如收款账号、收款行、收款户名、金额、附言等，工作量大且易出错。应用RPA辅助资金审单，可提高付款效率，防范资金风险，降低差错率。
2. 研发赋能领域
一是服务器和应用程序维护。RPA可以高效准确地处理数项任务，把控服务器和应用的日常巡检、日常维护和相关自动化操作，如重启服务器和重启应用等。RPA应用可在业务低峰期自动执行此类常规性人工操作，从而提升工作效率，节省人力成本。
二是系统诊断。单个监控系统能够监控的指标过于片面化，不能很好地适应复杂的IT系统环境，而RPA应用可实现各类监控系统的并行监控处理，结合监控指标，登录系统自动处理各类问题，并在处理完成后生成监控处理报告、诊断报告等，发送给IT运维人员。
三是自动化测试。一些具备高级功能的测试软件主要面向开发人员，诸如Jenkins、TestingWhiz、TelerikFiddler等，业务人员将该类软件应用于用户性能测试的过程通常复杂且耗时较长。RPA机器人可在业务专家的指导下，较高效率完成自动化测试部署，使用户性能测试效果大幅提升。
3. 分行业务领域
目前，广发银行总行各部门已在很多流程中实现RPA应用，但分行仍存在大量的人工操作场景，具有较大的RPA应用空间。以广州分行为例，目前已收集60余个RPA流程需求意向，主要场景涉及数据抓取、报表分析、流程催办、合规性检查、自动化录入、自动查询和分发数据等。经过较短周期的培训实操，分行科技人员能迅速掌握RPA初阶开发能力，开发出简单的RPA应用，从而使分行缩短重复性人工操作耗时。
广发银行将选取有一定技术实力且自动化升级意愿强烈的分行作为试点，以此为中心探索建立分行RPA子中心路径，并通过试点结果不断进行改进，再逐步在全行推广，从而实现为分行网点降本增效的目标。
4. 推动“业务—工作—技术”闭环的形成
RPA的关键价值在于能够推动“业务—工作—技术”三层面形成闭环。RPA应用从业务的基本原理与底层逻辑入手，挖掘运营工作的深层价值;同时在技术上考虑可嵌套、可迁移运行的软件或应用，完成多任务、多场景、多组织联动工作，形成全方位赋能业务的局面，实现“标准化接入、自动化调配、专业化服务、可视化管控”的工作模式。
三、建设RPA卓越中心
RPA卓越中心(Center of Excellence,CoE)即在全行内部建立自动化核心小组，将RPA工具深入有效地嵌入组织中，对RPA项目的总体治理提供指导，并执行和监测RPA项目的整个生命周期。一个跨职能的卓越中心能在未来的部署中重新分配知识、调配资源，有利于形成改善运营、协同增效、持续优化的整合式发展局面。该类卓越中心一般是由IT部门、流程管理部门、业务部门构成的虚拟管理组织。其中，业务部门负责提出业务诉求与收益评估、参与自动化流程设计、测试验收、用户培训、流程监测与变更管理；IT部门负责技术工具评估、架构设计、流程开发与交付、开发规范管理与运维管理、供应商管理与后评价；流程管理部门承担RPA整体运营规划职责，负责RPA运营策略规划、自动化评估及机会识别与评估、定期统筹全行自动化收益评价。
广发银行最早由运营及流程管理部引入RPA工具，在运营、财务会计等领域取得了较好的试点成效后，在总行部门内推广应用。随着RPA诉求的激增，各部门对RPA应用的开发部署效率和交付质量的要求越来越高。广发银行将结合实际管理情况，复用现有科技需求管理模式与职能分工，实现从需求处理、架构评估、前端研测、投产上线到运维监督的全过程督导管理，以更加规范的组织架构推动RPA应用的全面实施。基于此，广发银行将参照功能型组织架构设计的原则，构建以流程管理部门为主，需求提出团队、需求评估团队、项目执行团队、运行维护团队并行的组织架构(如图2所示)；同时拟采用运营管控型的组织管控形式，使流程管理部门对RPA项目进行集中管控，并强调各流程行为的统一性与同步性，以此促进全行RPA项目整体协调成长。
广发银行RPA项目规划大致分为以下三个阶段。
(1)试点实施阶段——RPA初步评估探索
对业务流程进行评估，进行方案设计并就开发部署工作进行排期，推动RPA项目迅速上线。这一阶段的工作已于2018年底完成。
(2)联合推广阶段——RPA中期实施管理
利用RPA“自动为先”的价值全链路优化和架构拓展特点，打造平台级的自动化治理能力。2019—2020年，广发银行联合推广阶段的工作取得了实质性进展；到2020年底，广发银行内部已树立自动化先行的思维及数字化升级转型的意识，在多个部门及分支机构的共同努力下，RPA项目执行的效率与质量显著提升。
(3)全行布局阶段——RPA生命周期管理
从2021年起，广发银行对RPA项目采取立足当下、不断反馈、持续优化的策略，以精细化运营与规模化发展的方式建设RPA卓越中心，持续沉淀RPA流程资产及方法论，并以流程为中心推进RPA迭代升级，提升运营效率；不断实行并完善RPA流程效能提升可视化管理，完成评价标准贯标，提升RPA流程管理水平。同时，参照流程体系与业务特点，广发银行积极重构链路，促进岗位重组，打造银行“重能力建设，轻常态运营”的新生态。
在数字时代，加快数字化转型是银行业顺应数字经济发展的必然选择。展望未来，作为一家欲塑造数字化经营新模式的股份制商业银行，广发银行将继续在信息技术变革的浪潮中以积极开放的姿态拥抱数字经济，持续提升竞争力，努力探索金融科技与数字化相融合的转型之路。
翻译：
As the banking industry enters a new era of man-machine coexistence, multi-party interaction and cross-border collaboration, the demand for business innovation and digital transformation and upgrading is increasingly strong, and it has become a consensus of the banking industry to promote service upgrading through the introduction of new technologies. Guangfa Bank firmly takes “digital development” as the strategic development goal of fintech, and introduced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology in 2018 to inject new vitality and vitality into the development of traditional business.
By virtue of its accuracy, reliability, stability, and safety compliance, RPA has become a widely used, market-leading artificial intelligence technology that iteratively optimizes the original operating process based on the way it simulates the interaction between human and computer systems. At the same time, RPA technology can be put into operation after a short period of debugging and configuration, which makes it form a benign synergy and complementary with traditional research and development technology. The application of RPA technology can not only reduce the workload of repeated labor execution, but also improve the speed and efficiency of business operation and reduce the daily labor cost, laying a solid foundation for the high-quality and efficient development of Guangfa Bank.
1. Overview of RPA application
By August 2022, 39 RPA robots had been put into use across the bank, covering 17 head offices, 19 branches and credit card centers, completing 273 RPA process modifications and replacing more than 43,100 hours of manual labor per month. Application scenarios of RPA cover data/statement processing, account management/accounting verification, financial accounting, invoice submission, account management, risk management, official document processing and other business fields.
1) Improve management quality and prevent and control compliance risks
With the People’s Bank of China’s increasingly strict supervision over bank settlement accounts, commercial banks have been repeatedly notified and punished for late reporting, missing reporting and wrong information submission of various accounts. Guangfa Bank has widely applied RPA technology to enterprise settlement account opening, closing, reporting of long-suspended accounts, reporting of individual settlement accounts and self-checking and reporting of interbank settlement accounts, effectively guaranteeing the timeliness and consistency of account reporting, and also playing an important role in the checking of accounts/accounts.
In the field of account management, Guangdong Development Bank has realized the application of RPA in 9 account management works in total, releasing about 3,324 hours of manual reporting/inquiry hours in branches every month.
In the field of account management, Guangfa Bank has implemented 13 sub-process RPA applications in the automation of account reconciliation, releasing about 5727.5 hours of labor hours in the head branch every month.
2) Avoid manual errors and prevent operation risks
For businesses with high requirements on data security, verification relationship and operation timeliness, RPA technology can simulate human-computer interaction behavior, replace manual handling of standardized work tasks, solidified manual operation steps in the form of scripts, effectively avoid manual errors, delay and other problems, so as to improve business accuracy and operation stability. Guangfa Bank has applied 25 RPA functions in data processing and other aspects, releasing 559.1 hours of labor hours in the head office every month.
3) Release human resources and reduce labor costs
For manual operation matters with high frequency, standard, operation regularity and repeatability, RPA program can greatly reduce the occupation of low-value manpower, so that employees have the opportunity to devote to high-value-added work. In the field of batch processing, Guangfa Bank applied RPA to realize the functions of batch query of loan information, batch entry of mortgage information and batch screening of high-end customers. After the application of batch entry of mortgage information and promotion of RPA application, it is estimated that the three RPA applications can release 13,808 hours of labor hours in total each month in the head branch.
4) Improve management efficiency and timely monitoring
The business managers of the head branch of Guangfa Bank need to carry out a large number of work such as time-based supervision, fund monitoring and data monitoring on a daily basis. RPA technology can provide an efficient automated solution for the work with clear business logic, generalization or standardization, and the development and implementation cycle is short, supporting the rapid online application and meeting the needs of flexible deployment of business rules. RPA robot becomes an intelligent assistant for the business management of Guangfa Bank.
5) Non-invasive technology to solve interactive problems
RPA technology can better solve the problems of system development and information interaction, such as business operation across the internal and external network system, data between systems can not be directly connected or open interface, and is widely used in the process of data integration of multiple systems within or outside the line, complementary with the advantages of traditional science and technology, agile service business development, and help digital transformation.
2. Future planning of RPA application
At present, digital technology has reshaped the working mode and method, and the application of RPA technology has basically covered all business segments and some pilot branches of Guangfa Bank. The participation of the whole bank has gradually increased, and the employees have a strong sense of automation transformation. For banks, RPA technology can not only reduce costs and improve efficiency, release human resources, optimize cost structure and other values, but also help banks restructure process links and optimize organizational capabilities.
Therefore, combined with the trend of digital times and the actual situation of operation and management, Guangfa Bank continues to strengthen scientific and technological investment while seeking progress while maintaining stability, comprehensively promotes digital transformation, and adopts the “fixed-point breakthrough” approach to promote and apply RPA technology in the three fields of financial capital management, R&D empowerment and branch organization (as shown in Figure 1).
At the same time, we adhere to the thinking of “penetration of the whole bank” in the three levels of business, work and technology, so that financial services can access more new scenarios, further improve the centralized operation ability of various businesses, and then expand the application depth and scope of RPA technology in the whole bank. Promote all business departments to carry out process reconstruction and automatic upgrade of high-frequency repetitive, standardized and large-scale work tasks, and create a new management mode with light operation.
1) Financial fund management
RPA technology is an important tool for digital transformation of enterprise financial sharing center. The financial sharing center needs to carry out more process solidification and operation of the group’s background system, including a large number of highly repeatable and obviously process-based low value-added work, which needs to carry out repeated information operation and data accounting. RPA financial robot has certain development space in this kind of work.
First, document audit. The basic work content of fee document review is complicated. Financial personnel need to manually check the approval process, manually click and enlarge the image to view the invoice, check the document information one by one, and issue the approval opinions. This work has a high degree of standardization, and the application of RPA to assist document review can improve the efficiency of single business processing on the one hand, and predict compliance risks on the other hand to release human resources.
The second is the audit of funds. The accuracy and standardization of the fund payment order affect the security of the fund, and it is usually necessary to manually check the key information of the relevant transfer order and payment order one by one, such as the receiving account, receiving bank, receiving account name, amount, postscript, etc., which is a heavy workload and easy to make mistakes. The application of RPA can improve the payment efficiency, prevent the risk of funds and reduce the error rate.
2) Research and development enabling areas
One is server and application maintenance. The RPA handles several tasks efficiently and accurately, controlling routine inspection and maintenance of servers and applications, and automating operations, such as restarting servers and applications. The RPA application can automatically perform such routine manual operations during off-peak periods of business, thereby improving work efficiency and saving labor costs.
The second is system diagnosis. The indicators that can be monitored by a single monitoring system are too one-sided and cannot be well adapted to the complex IT system environment. However, the application of RPA can realize the parallel monitoring and processing of various monitoring systems, combine the monitoring indicators, log in to the system to automatically deal with various problems, and generate monitoring and processing reports and diagnostic reports after the processing is completed to send to IT operation and maintenance personnel.
Third, automated testing. Testing software with advanced capabilities, such as Jenkins, TestingWhiz, TelerikFiddler, and others, is intended for developers. The process of applying such software to user performance testing by business people is often complex and time-consuming. RPA robots can complete automated test deployment with high efficiency under the guidance of business experts, greatly improving the user performance test effect.
3) Business areas of branches
At present, all departments of the head office of Guangfa Bank have implemented the application of RPA in many processes, but there are still a large number of manual operation scenarios in branches, which has a large application space of RPA. Taking Guangzhou Branch as an example, more than 60 RPA process requirement intentions have been collected so far. The main scenarios involve data capture, report analysis, process urging, compliance check, automatic input, automatic query and data distribution, etc. After a short period of training and practical operation, scientific and technical personnel of the branch can quickly master the initial development ability of RPA and develop simple RPA application, so as to shorten the repetitive manual operation time of the branch.
Guangfa Bank will select the branch with certain technical strength and strong intention of automation upgrade as the pilot. And explore the path of establishing branch RPA sub-center, and make continuous improvement through the pilot results. And then gradually promote in the whole bank. So as to achieve the goal of reducing cost and increasing efficiency for the branch network.
4) Promote the formation of a closed loop of “business-work-technology”
The key value of RPA is its ability to close the loop at the business-work-technology level. The application of RPA starts from the basic principles and underlying logic of the business to dig the deep value of the operation work. At the same time, the software or application that can be nested and migrated is considered in terms of technology. So as to complete the linkage work of multi-tasks, multi-scenes and multi-organizations, form a situation of all-round enabling business. And realize the working mode of “standardized access, automatic deployment, professional service and visual management and control”.
3. Building the RPA Center of Excellence
The RPA Center of Excellence (CoE) establishes an automation core group within the bank to embed RPA tools deeply and effectively in the organization, provide guidance on the overall governance of RPA projects. And implement and monitor RPA projects throughout their lifecycle. A cross-functional center of excellence can reallocate knowledge and resources in future deployments. Which is conducive to an integrated development situation of improved operations, synergies and continuous optimization. This kind of center of excellence is a virtual management organization composed of IT department, process management department and business department.
Among them, the business department is responsible for putting forward business demands and revenue evaluation. Participating in automated process design, testing and acceptance, user training, process monitoring and change management. The IT department is responsible for technical tool evaluation, architecture design, process development and delivery. Development specification management and operation and maintenance management, supplier management and post-evaluation. The process management department is responsible for the overall operation planning of RPA. And is responsible for RPA operation strategy planning, automation evaluation, opportunity identification and evaluation. And coordinating the automated income evaluation of the whole bank on a regular basis.
The Operation and Process Management Department of Guangfa Bank first introduced the RPA tool.
After achieving good pilot results in operation, financial accounting and other fields. It was promoted and applied in the head office. With the rapid increase of the demand for RPA, various departments have higher and higher requirements for the efficiency of development. Deployment and delivery quality of RPA applications. Guangfa Bank will combine the actual management situation, reuse the existing technology demand management mode and functional division. And realize the whole process supervision and management from demand processing. Architecture evaluation, front-end research and testing, production and on-line to operation and maintenance supervision. So as to promote the full implementation of RPA application with a more standardized organizational structure.
Based on this, Guangfa Bank will follow the principles of functional organizational structure design to build an organizational structure with the process management department as the main body and the demand proposal team. Demand assessment team, project execution team and operation and maintenance team in parallel (as shown in Figure 2). At the same time, we plan to adopt the organizational control form of operation control. So that the process management department can centrally control the RPA project. And emphasize the unity and synchronization of each process behavior. So as to promote the overall coordinated growth of the whole bank’s RPA project.
Guangfa Bank RPA project planning is roughly divided into the following three stages:
(1) Pilot implementation stage — preliminary evaluation and exploration of RPA
Evaluate the business process, design the solution and schedule the development and deployment work to push the RPA project online quickly. Work on this phase was completed by the end of 2018.
(2) Joint promotion stage — mid-term implementation and management of RPA
Using RPA’s “automatic first” value full link optimization and architecture expansion features, build platform level automated governance capabilities. From 2019 to 2020, the joint promotion of Guangdong Development Bank has made substantial progress. By the end of 2020, Guangfa Bank has established the thinking of automation first and the awareness of digital upgrading and transformation. Under the joint efforts of multiple departments and branches. The efficiency and quality of RPA project execution have been significantly improved.
(3) Whole line layout stage — RPA life cycle management
Since 2021, Guangfa Bank has adopted the strategy of based on the present. Continuous feedback and continuous optimization for the RPA project. Built the RPA Center of Excellence in the way of fine operation and large-scale development. Continuously deposited the process assets and methodology of RPA. And promoted the iterative upgrading of RPA with the process as the center to improve the operation efficiency. Continuous implementation and improvement of visual management of RPA process efficiency improvement, completion of evaluation standards. It improve the level of RPA process management. At the same time, according to the process system and business characteristics. Guangfa Bank actively restructured the link, promoted the reorganization of posts. And created a new ecology of “emphasizing capacity building and light normal operation”.
In the digital age, accelerating the digital transformation is the inevitable choice for the banking industry to adapt to the development of digital economy. Looking forward to the future, as a joint-stock commercial bank aiming to create a new mode of digital operation. Guangfa Bank will continue to embrace the digital economy with an active and open attitude in the tide of information technology changes. Continuously improve its competitiveness, and strive to explore the transformation road of fintech and digital integration.
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