BNP Paribas Securities Services, a leading global custodian with USD 10.6 trillion in assets under custody[1], has automated the processing of key asset servicing documentation, a major milestone in the bank’s digital transformation programme.
The move, which took 12 months to implement, aims to enhance back office operational efficiency, increase straight-through processing rates and reduce services turn-around times for the benefit of the bank’s clients.
Using Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and machine learning, including Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), BNP Paribas Securities Services is now able to automatically capture, extract and classify data from documents such as fund prospectuses and order confirmations. The resulting structured datasets are then fed directly into the bank’s operational systems.
The bank has so far automated the processing of 500,000 documents a year.
Philippe Ruault, Head of Digital Transformation at BNP Paribas Securities Services, said: “This is a major milestone in our digital transformation programme, enabling us to automate time-consuming tasks thanks to the use of the latest technologies. Our clients will benefit from greater operational efficiency, faster turn-around times and increased straight-through processing rates.“
The processing of the following documents has been automated :
- Fund prospectuses – improving onboarding of new clients
- Order confirmations – increasing straight-through processing rates
- Corporate events announcements – shortening the lead time of corporate action announcements
- Tax documentation – accelerating the processing of tax forms
Future use cases in the pipeline include the digitalisation of fee schedules, provider invoices and client contracts, which will boost the system’s capacity to manage documents of increasing levels of complexity.
The technology used was developed internally in collaboration with BNP Paribas’ CIB Analytics Consulting.
[1] As of 31 March 2020. Source: BNP Paribas Securities Services’ website
