From fragile document batch runs to real-time control

The investment bank deployment is one of several successful batch automation projects driven by DocFusion across South Africa’s financial sector. (Image: DocFusion)

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In financial services, batch processing is the silent engine behind customer communication. Every statement, policy update and compliance letter adds up to millions of documents that must be generated, validated and delivered on time. 

For banks, these runs are mission-critical. A single failure can delay customer communications, trigger compliance risk and drain IT resources. With regulators tightening oversight and customer expectations climbing, fragile batch processes are no longer acceptable.

A bank’s existing batch environment had supported operations for years, but it was increasingly brittle and resource-intensive. The pain points included:

• Slow execution: Large statement runs stretched overnight windows, sometimes taking days.
• Fragility under pressure: A single error could stop the entire batch, requiring full reruns.
• Limited oversight: Errors were difficult to isolate, with no real-time visibility into batch status.
• Compliance risk: Without proactive audit trails, regulatory assurance was reactive at best.
• Template bottlenecks: Updates required scarce specialist skills, slowing response times.
• Integration gaps: Legacy tools struggled to connect with core banking and modern platforms, creating manual workarounds.

Before DocFusion, the bank’s legacy systems operated in silos, each running its own manual or semi-automated batch process. This led to duplication, integration headaches and fragile dependencies that often required human intervention. By consolidating these into a single, multi-system integrated, automated batch process with real-time, granular visibility, the bank eliminated manual handovers, reduced failure risk and gained full control and traceability across every document run.

The result: higher operational costs, mounting compliance exposure and frustrated IT teams.

To overcome these challenges, South Africa’s largest private investment bank deployed DocFusion’s Enterprise Batch Processing Engine – an API-first, enterprise-ready platform designed for scale, resilience and compliance. 

With DocFusion, the bank gained:

• High-throughput performance: Parallel, asynchronous processing that handles millions of documents per batch with up to 70% faster execution.
• Operational resilience: Per-item error recovery ensures batches keep running even if individual items fail. Issues are isolated, corrected and reprocessed without restarting the run.
• Real-time oversight: Live dashboards provide visibility into batch status, throughput and errors, with full life cycle audit trails.
• Compliance by design: Data validation before processing, governed templates and regulator-ready audit logs built in.
• Low-code template management: Microsoft Word-based design empowers business teams while maintaining enterprise controls.
• API-first integration: Seamless connections to core banking systems, CRMs and downstream channels ensure agility without custom workarounds.
• Rapid deployment: The bank was able to go live in a fraction of the time typically required for legacy solutions.

The switch to DocFusion delivered measurable impact:

• Efficiency: Batch windows cut dramatically, completing runs within operational maintenance periods.
• Resilience: Zero full-batch reruns – individual errors are fixed in real-time.
• Compliance confidence: Every document run is now fully auditable, satisfying both internal governance and regulatory checks.
• Scalability: The bank now processes millions of statements reliably each cycle, with capacity to grow further.
• Future readiness: Complex multi-source runs can be orchestrated seamlessly, ensuring consistency and speed at enterprise scale.

One executive summed it up: “We now have control over every stage of the batch life cycle – from template authoring to error resolution – and can keep pace with both customers and regulators.”

The investment bank deployment is one of several successful batch automation projects driven by DocFusion across South Africa’s financial sector. The message is clear: batch is back – and it’s a strategic differentiator.

For banks, insurers and financial services providers, DocFusion’s enterprise-grade, API-first batch engine offers more than efficiency. It delivers resilience, visibility and the peace of mind that every customer communication is accurate, compliant and on time.