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It’s a time of tremendous growth in capital markets, with the S&P 500 growing 26% in 2024. That’s great news for the financial services community — but it also poses significant challenges. Organizations are struggling to keep up with the volume of data and documents that come with growth. They’re looking for a more sustainable solution than increasing headcount indefinitely.
Faced with this challenge, many organizations are turning to automation. Using platforms like Xceptor, they’re eliminating manual processes from their organizations — and in turn, they’re reducing risk, improving employee satisfaction, and creating new opportunities for optimization and growth.
Recently, we gathered Xceptor clients and industry experts to discuss the challenges and benefits of bringing automation into your organization. Xceptor’s Jack Lupica led a panel discussion that addressed topics like the unexpected benefits of automation, overcoming friction on the automation journey, and the future of automation and AI.
Here are some of the insights and lessons our participants shared from their automation journeys.
Why organizations start the automation journey
Each of our panel participants began their automation initiatives from the same starting point: realizing their organization was spending too much time, money, and effort on manual processes.
“Our Xceptor journey started with us saying This is stupid,” joked Clinton Mortley, Director at UMB Fund Services. “We’re paying smart people to move numbers from one place to another.”
Other panelists agreed, mentioning C-suite pressure to reduce the constant requests for additional headcount. At the same time, operations teams have to respond quickly to changes — from growth in trading volumes to new products to new regulations — and often, the fastest solution is to throw bodies at the problem. There simply isn’t time to create an optimized process.
But our panelists agreed that this approach is unsustainable. Beyond the obvious costs of manual processes, many of our participants also mentioned the impact on employee experience.
“Nobody spent four years in college to reconcile transactions for twenty years,” said John Kotsonouris, Global Head of Business Intelligence and Process Reengineering for Markets Operations at Citi.
The benefits of automation for capital markets firms
Of course, as anyone who’s ever championed a transformation project knows, implementing new technology is easier said than done. So, we asked our panelists to share some inspiration by describing the opportunities they’ve been able to capitalize on through automation.
Ekaterina Yaremko, Senior Vice President for Information Delivery at Northern Trust, shared a long list of automation wins. “We always have this mindset of what can we do better?” she said. “Is it possible that this process can be done better? Is it possible that this process can be eliminated?”
Her organization uses Xceptor to automate previously complex, highly manual reconciliations, as well as for client onboarding, and they’re exploring workflows for bank loan notices and confirmations, as well as valuation statements. Unlike generalist automation providers, the Xceptor team brings intimate knowledge of the complexities and nuances of capital markets operational processes. We designed our products to help leaders like Ekaterina optimize complex workflows that generic automation platforms can’t handle.
Our other panelists shared similar success stories.
“We’re using Xceptor across a range of functions, it’s our go-to solution for a lot of our challenging data issues,”
said John Kotsonouris, noting EUC remediation as a prime example.
Xceptor’s approach is to seamlessly connect to any system or application, making it easy to ingest and transmit data. We use AI to increase the speed and accuracy of data extraction from unstructured documents, a well-known pain point in capital markets, and streamline processing of data based on business rules. Our platform empowers users to automate and orchestrate processes, triggering actions across workflows that involve people, systems, and AI, all while maintaining visibility and control.
The benefits of automation go beyond simply reducing manual effort — for example, a panelist mentioned being able to identify and resolve data issues at the source. They noticed that one broker consistently sent in bad data. Instead of simply outsourcing data normalization to an ever-growing team, they worked with the broker to fix the issues.
John Kotsonouris agreed. “We think about using data to identify process things we can improve on, things we can ask clients to do differently, things we can ask vendors to do differently,” he says, adding that automation has also helped Citi control risk and manage its regulatory obligations more effectively.
And perhaps most importantly, automation frees employees to use their most valuable skills, rather than spending time wrangling data. Automation allows Ekaterina’s team to “provide a better analysis,” she says, “instead of just spending all that time trying to get that data into the shape you want it.”
“We see Xceptor and other tools like that in the low-code space as ways to enable operations professionals to enjoy their jobs, to be more effective, to have more rewarding careers,” says John Kotsonouris.
How to overcome friction on the automation journey
The benefits may be clear, but the path to achieving them is rarely so. Here’s what our panelists recommended for a successful automation journey:
Take an iterative approach
“If we were waiting for nirvana, or waiting to get off this legacy system, we’d be waiting for years,” said John Kotsonouris. His team focuses on quick sprints rather than cumbersome, multi-year projects.
Work in close collaboration with technology colleagues
Ekaterina says Northern Trust’s technology team appreciates how low-code platforms like Xceptor make it easy for business users to do their own optimization work: “There is so much going on that anything business users can do on their own is actually appreciated and embraced.”
Don't neglect control
In an industry where there’s very little margin for error, it’s critical to invest in monitoring, visibility, and transparency. Tools like dashboards provide both a big-picture view and the ability to drill down into issues.
Have the right mindset
Ekaterina explained that success in automation requires the whole organization to adopt a mindset for change. “I’m always thinking about how I challenge the status quo, opening it to our teams and our partners,” she said.
The future of automation (it’s all about AI)
Looking toward the future, our participants all said AI was top of mind, though all agreed that they’re in the very early stages of figuring out how to use it effectively. So far, most of the value of AI has been as a productivity tool that frees people up for higher-value tasks.
Our panelists agreed that the non-deterministic nature of AI and its propensity for errors pose a challenge for financial services. “With AI, for now, we’re on the very conservative side,” said Ekaterina.
In such a highly regulated environment, where the consequences for errors can be severe, you need certain and absolute outcomes. That’s why Xceptor has focused on building guardrails and governance that allow organizations to ensure AI meets the necessary bar for accuracy and reliability.
Ultimately, no matter the particular tool, our participants agreed that automation and AI are all about one goal. “We are continuously improving,” said John Kotsonouris. “We’re continuously thinking about how we streamline, how we provide our clients with better service, and meet our risk obligations better. And data is the driver for all of that.”
If you’re ready to discover how your organization can transform operations efficiency, schedule your demo of Xceptor’s data automation platform today.
