From manual processing to AI-controlled autonomy: German and Swiss banks are facing a turning point. Those still relying on isolated OCR and IDP islands today are building the legacy systems of tomorrow. It’s time for a radical reassessment of the input management strategy.
The illusion of dark processing
In theory, the world of banking has long been digital. In practice, promises of efficiency often collapse at the first hurdle: the unstructured document. Whether complex loan agreements, KYC documents or inheritance matters – the manual extraction of data ties up highly qualified resources, increases the error rate and drives processing times into regions that modern customers can no longer afford.
The solutions so far? Rigid, often mainly rule-based systems. These work “passably” as long as the form corresponds exactly to the standard. But as soon as the variance increases, so do the costs for templates and maintenance. The result is an “automation paradox”: millions are invested in software, only to end up employing armies of clerks for manual follow-up checks.
The turning point: why “standard” is no longer enough
The market has changed. It’s no longer just about reading a “name” field from a PDF. It’s about context, logic and, above all, regulatory resilience. And the supervisory authorities, above all BaFin in Germany and FINMA in Switzerland, are tightening the regulatory requirements.
One critical point that is often underestimated is the mass personal data scenario. Banks face the challenge of not being able to expose thousands of data records to external cloud solutions in an uncontrolled manner. A strategic IDP (Intelligent Document Processing) platform must therefore be able to control data flows in such a way that only what is absolutely necessary leaves the bank’s secure sphere.
The solution: agent-based workflows and C5 certification
What distinguishes a future-proof platform from a legacy system? The answer lies in agentic AI. While classic AI models wait passively for input, agentic systems act in a goal-oriented manner. They understand the intention behind a document workflow and can prepare complex chains of decisions autonomously.
For a bank, a platform that unites two worlds is crucial:
- “Out-of-the-box efficiency”: The ability to map 80% of common banking use cases (account opening, loan application, powers of attorney) immediately and without lengthy projects.
- “Atomic flexibility”: Access to granular APIs and components to build individual, highly complex workflows without having to reinvent the wheel.
Security is not a feature here, but the basis. C5 certification is essential for German institutions in order to guarantee the necessary audit security vis-à-vis the auditors and regulators.
“Banks that only view IDP as a tool decision are falling short. It is an infrastructure decision that determines the scalability of the entire digital transformation.” – Alain Veuve (CEO Parashift)
Proof of concept: from vision to reality
A modern proof of concept (PoC) in the banking environment can no longer be limited to the recognition rate of invoices, for example. It must prove how the platform handles unstructured, multi-page document bundles and how seamlessly it integrates into the existing governance structure.
Parashift AI starts where others stop. By combining state-of-the-art LLM technology, OneTouchLearning and Document Swarm Learning with an architecture that is specifically tailored to the high security requirements of the financial sector, we enable automation that grows with the bank. From simple extraction to a fully autonomous agent workflow. And; we are aware, despite all the prophecies of doom, that banks are often at the very beginning of the journey.
Conclusion: set the course now
The time for waiting is over. The technological gap between pioneers and laggards is no longer closing by itself – it is widening exponentially through the use of AI agents. This will not happen overnight. But: banks need to make strategic decisions now: will they rely on a platform that delivers today and provides the basis for agent autonomy tomorrow?
Digitalization in banking does not need another pilot project. It needs a foundation.
