Bank statements play an important role for various business processes. The automated classification of this document and the automatic extraction of data from it is essential for the workflow of various financial processes. However, the variation and complexity of line item data has so far prevented many companies from automating the processing of bank statements. Thanks to an automation solution based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), that’s about to change.
Key takeaways: With an Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), companies can now automatically classify bank statements, extract the data from them and use it to make their specific business processes and services more efficient and cost effective.
Challenges in the processing of bank statements
A bank statement lists all activity on a bank account – each individual amount of a debit as well as each individual amount of a credit, usually over the course of a month. It also lists general information about the bank and the account holder. Companies need this data for their processes and to be able to assess the risk of an individual or a company – be it for a service or a loan, for example.
The challenges in processing bank account statements revolve around the following:
- Manual data entry: One of the biggest challenges that remains is the manual entry of data from bank statements. This is time consuming (expensive) and error prone (risk of non-compliance).
- Reconciliation of bank statements: A similar challenge to manual data entry from bank statements also applies to reconciling data from statements with internal records to identify discrepancies.
- Different formats: Even though statements are similar, they still differ in format and layout from bank to bank. This complicates processing with traditional solutions.
- Large volume: The huge volume of statements alone can make efficient processing an impossibility. It makes scaling processes impossible.
The combination of these factors leads to several problems in different processes:
- Errors in manual data entry always pose risks (data security and compliance)
- Turnaround times for credit approvals are delayed
- Detecting fraud and suspicious activity is more difficult
- Onboarding new customers is inefficient and expensive
In the following chapter, you’ll see that things can be done differently: accuracy, speed and cost efficiency are just three of the attributes that become a reality with an intelligent solution for processing bank statements.
The solution for bank statements: AI-powered platform
To make bank statement processing more efficient, you need an automation solution that can also handle the requirements. Parashift provides an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based Intelligent Document Processing platform that is capable of handling these requirements. To do this, Parashift uses a unique approach with its proprietary Document Swarm Learning:
Document Swarm Learning is powered by machine learning algorithms trained on billions of data points. This is possible because document types are split into individual fields and the learnings are shared across all customers and industries and across all document types. This industry and language agnostic approach and unique global data network creates unprecedented accuracy and efficiency in handling documents such as bank statements and for extracting essential data. Thanks to the revolutionary Document Swarm Learning, the IDP solution continuously learns, maximizing learning in a fully GDPR compliant manner.
For accurate, efficient and effortless document process, Parashift focuses on the following features:
Page separation: In addition to the account statements, you also receive other documents at the same time. The first step in the document process is therefore to separate this batch of documents into individual documents. There are several methods available to you for this: an AI-based page separation that learns from separation interactions, a page separation using barcodes or a separation page, a page separation according to a specific page in the batch, a regex-based separation, or even manual page separation.
Classification: After page separation follows automatic classification of documents. Is it a bank statement, a pension statement or a land register extract? For the classification, more than 400 ready-made document types are directly available to you, which can be activated with one click. If you need additional document types, you can easily configure them yourself in just a few minutes and clicks thanks to the no-code approach.
Data extraction: In this process step, all relevant data points, including line item data, are automatically extracted (see below for what this means in terms of bank statements). The Parashift platform runs 2000 AI models in parallel to provide general IDP functions. So, again, you have over 400 ready-to-use document types at your disposal. And alternatively, you can also set up a custom document type for data extraction from any type of document.
Sort and route: You can sort and route all document input via Parashift. This automation reduces costs and significantly shortens turnaround times.
AI and Human in the Loop: The combination of Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence (Human in the Loop) in validation assures that quality is always guaranteed. In addition, the AI improves by continuously learning.
Parashift’s Intelligent Document Processing solution processes a significant amount of bank account statements. In fact, it is the sixth most processed document on the Parashift platform.
More efficient credit approvals, faster onboarding
With Parashift IDP solution for automated account statement processing, there are several use cases for businesses:
Financing and Mortgage Process: As one of their main processes, banks and financial service providers need to process thousands of requests every year for the financing and mortgage process. With the Parashift IDP platform, they can automate this from now on. In addition to bank statements, land register statements and pension statements, for example, can also be processed automatically. This can massively reduce turnaround times, which not only makes processes more efficient and cost-effective, but also makes customers happy at the same time.
More efficient customer onboarding and better fraud detection: For new customer onboarding and the Know Your Customer (KYC) process, data needs to be extracted from bank statements in addition to data from identity documents to verify individuals. With Parashift’s IDP solution, machine learning algorithms classify documents by type and check for completeness and data consistency. Then, relevant data is extracted and the information is checked against a database to verify its accuracy. In case of incompleteness or suspected fraud, the IDP solution automatically flags this for review by an employee.
Here’s how it works: How Parashift extracts data from bank statements
As you can see from the screenshot, Parashift IDP platform allows you to extract all important data from bank statements automatically:
- General information: Bank name, bank address, billing period (from), billing period (to), bank statement creation date.
- Account holder information: Name and address.
- Line item data: Booking date, detailed description, amount of debit, amount of credit.
So the automatic extraction by Parashift does not only include general information like addresses, names and the date of the bank statement. Rather, you can also automatically extract all line item data, including the details of each entry. The accurate and effective extraction of this line item data in a structured form is essential to enable you to automate your business processes end-to-end in the future.
Furthermore, in addition to the hundreds of out-of-the-box document types, custom document types can also be customized in minutes directly on the no-code platform.
Conclusion: Process bank statements effortlessly
Whether you need to extract and process data from bank statements for the financing process, for fraud detection or for onboarding new customers, the Parashift Intelligent Document Processing platform will make it effortless for you down the road.
With Parashift, you’ve found the perfect partner for the automated processing of your bank account statements – and far beyond. Talk to one of our experts today about your specific requirements. Or get an idea of the user-friendly Intelligent Document Processing platform for yourself right now and test Parashift for 14 days free of charge and without any obligation.
Frequently Asked Questions:
- Why is Parashift perfect for document processing automation. Is the Parashift IDP solution suitable for industries that handle sensitive customer data?
Because Parashift is the only cloud-native Intelligent Document Processing solution that meets all InfoSec and compliance requirements while being at the forefront of AI development. Parashift is specifically designed to enable banks and insurance, healthcare and public sector companies to process sensitive customer identification data (CID) in the cloud in a secure and privacy-compliant manner.
2. Is the Parashift IDP platform fully EU GDPR compliant? Can documents and extracted data be deleted without losing training data?
EU GDPR is at the core of what Parashift does. Parashift is fully EU-DSGVO compliant, which allows companies in any industry to process sensitive customer data securely in the cloud. In addition, documents and data can be deleted immediately after the document has been processed, without losing any training data.
3. What makes Parashift unique?
Parashift invented and developed Document Swarm Learning, a globally unique approach. With Document Swarm Learning, learning occurs across all use cases and all clients on the platform. This generates a massive network of learning data for document intelligence, always maintaining the highest InfoSec and compliance requirements. Parashift is thus built for true versatility.
