Robotic process automation (RPA) initiatives have created “millions of dollars” in value for BMO Financial Group, but the bank’s efforts are now shifting to automation for risk and cybersecurity.

A digital workforce of bots has saved countless labor hours at BMO Financial Group, the U.S. subsidiary of $805.9 billion BMO, via automation of manual workflows, systems navigation, form and document population, and data extraction. In the past six months, however, the bank has embarked on an automated cybersecurity and regulatory journey, tapping RPA provider UiPath as a key partner, Lisa Christofilos, chief information officer of data and analytics at BMO, told Bank Automation News.

“We are working together with several business partners to build creative solutions for the bank. For instance, our robotic process automation technology team used cutting-edge innovation to automate a U.S. regulatory process — it’s the first UiPath unattended bot implementation in BMO,” Christofilos said. UiPath’s automation of this process has led to reduced operational risk and cost of operations with streamlined processing, Christofilos said.

UiPath also works with Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young and $8.9 billion Patelco Credit Union, which has seen more than 60,000 completed process automations and 909,000 bot-performed tasks since May 2021, according to its website.

Asking the right question

BMO’s data and analytics efforts begin with one fundamental question, Christofilos told BAN.

“Our work around data and analytics always starts with ‘why are we doing this?’ And for us at BMO, the value of data and analytics always starts with our customers and employees,” Christofilos said. BMO Financial Group facilitates automation and data culture through “democratizing” employee access to training and learning resources.

“We have created Vault — a bankwide data and analytics transformation program — which brings together over 50 business and technology experts from across all the organization to plan and execute against our data and analytics strategic priorities,” Christofilos added.

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