Automation & Banking: How to Ensure Compliance Without Slowing Innovation

Is digital transformation in banking more about technology or mindset shifts?

Belyan Belchev

Belyan Belchev

Director, Loans Back Office

What challenges do banks face in implementing machine learning at scale in back-office operations?

Major challenges banks face in implementing machine learning at scale include:

  1. Setting machine learning software to effectuate all regulatory and compliance requirements that are imposed on the banking sector in particular
  2. Bringing employees on board to accept and support the plans for the employment of machine learning software for some of their tasks
  3. Changing the processes in a way that will support the employment of machine learning at scale, avoiding automation of inefficient processes and hampering the effectiveness of the whole initiative

How does back-office digitalisation impact risk management in lending operations?

Back office digitalisation significantly improved the risk management process in our organisation in several key areas:

  1. Automated extraction of key information from the internal databases or retrieving information from external third parties during the risk evaluation process
  2. Automated monitoring of loan contracts’ covenants with automated monitoring of covenant terms and triggering automated reminders to relationship managers for required action from customers
  3. Employment of early-warning software able to detect signs of deterioration in customer performance automatically for the whole portfolio and set alarms before customers get into trouble with their exposures

How do you balance automation with the need for human oversight in loan processing?

Automation is employed on a large scale in our organisation, especially in the area of household lending back office processes, and this situation enforces the requirement for robots or other automation software to be properly supervised so as to be fully compliant with the rigid bank policies and procedures. In this regard, human oversight still exists for most of the automated processes; for some of these processes, it is in real-time, for other processes, it is done at a later stage or on an ad hoc basis. For example, for some automated processes, even if they could be fully automated end-to-end, we still keep one or several critical steps in the process to be performed by employees.

Discover more invaluable insights from Belyan’s informative case study:“Digital Banking Transformation – Back-office Digitalisation’s Biggest Challenges”.

He will be presenting at the 16th Annual Operational and Back Office Excellence in Banking Summit, happening on the 9th – 10th of April 2025, at MAXX by Steigenberger Hotel Vienna – don’t miss out!

→ visit event website ←
www.backofficeexcellence.com

Short Speaker BIO:

Belyan Belchev is an innovative senior manager with a wealth of experience in the financial and banking industry and a strong educational background in finance and operations areas. Skilled in Financial Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, Operations Management, Business Processes Design/Redesign, Process Automation. Recently, he had leading a role in projects related to operations improvements, process optimisations, RPA software implementation, bank digital transformation and innovation.

Since 2017, Belyan Belchev has undertaken the role of Director Loans Back Office Operations (Loan Administration) at Eurobank Bulgaria.

You might also like