Why financial services firm see process mining as core part of risk management, auditing

Process mining will become a key tool for financial services firms, auditors and risk management teams.

That outlook was given by two financial services executives speaking at Celonis World Tour 2022 New York in two separate sessions.

The big takeaway: Auditors and risk managers are charged with ensuring processes continually assess various levels of risk. As processes increasingly become automated, process mining will be a key tool in the auditing and risk management toolbox.

Related: Why mortgage lenders are going to be revamping processes

Here's what executives from Nationwide and Wells Fargo had to say about the intersection of process mining and risk management.

Nationwide: Meet the digital auditor

Jason Burchwell, Vice President of Internal Audit at Nationwide, said process mining will become a key tool for auditors and risk management at the company.

"What does the auditor of the future look like? It will be a digital auditor that views process mining as a key cornerstone," said Burchwell.

For instance, Nationwide is both a financial services firm and a large property insurance company with shared services. Process mining can give a clear picture of end-to-end risk management across Nationwide. "Risk management is a driver of value," said Burchwell.

He acknowledged that Nationwide has some work ahead to educating employees about what process mining can do. The auditor of the future is likely to evolve to continuous monitoring and auditing, said Burchwell.

"Process mining has a path forward in the risk space with auditors offering advice and assessing risk on an ongoing basis," he said.

Process mining will be more of a tool for auditors as financial services firms automate more processes. "The future is getting that Xray of processes and improving audit procedures in the future," said Burchwell.

Wells Fargo: Process mining meets risk management

Jeremy Bastacky, Senior Lead Business Execution Consultant at Wells Fargo, said process mining has increasingly been adopted throughout the bank's business units.

Wells Fargo has a Celonis Center of Excellence that identifies best practices and helps units prioritize processes, said Bastacky.

"We are marrying process mining with the risk management systems that have information with real operational events," he said. "With process mining you can put together a picture to build the value proposition."

Also: Wells Fargo at Celosphere

Bastacky said Wells Fargo is prioritizing workflow systems and revamping processes that have data in motion. "There's a trove of information for data science and process science," he said. These systems can capture processes, value as well as risk posture of transactions.

Wells Fargo prioritizes use cases for process mining based on process and people, risk and tech and data. Whether it's Wells Fargo's real-estate mortgage, auto lending or credit card business one of process mining's key returns are reducing risk and supporting compliance, said Bastacky. Risk is a goal alongside increasing speed, reducing costs and efficiency gains.

A big part of Bastacky's job is working across business units, subject matter experts and executive sponsors for process improvements, he said. And it's an easy sell when a senior executive can see an aha moment in real time.

"A senior leader can ask a question and a process engineer can demonstrate live and give an answer with a risk lens," said Bastacky.

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief (former)

Larry Dignan is the former Editor in Chief of Celonis Media. Before joining Celonis, he was Editor in Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine.