The building society said robots had played a ‘vital part’ in sharing the workload with human colleagues and supporting borrowers in financial difficulty during the pandemic.

It said the bots had completed more than 100,000 tasks on more than 26,000 applications since the government announced the introduction of the mortgage payment holidays in March 2020.

As well as processing transactions the robots also updated member accounts and sent out confirmation letters and emails. They provided peace of mind at this unprecedented time, Leeds said.

Indeed the society explained how the rapid roll-out of mortgage payment holidays was a challenge for many lenders who had to scale up quickly to meet a growing number of member requests.

It collaborated with Blue Prism, which gifted extra robots to support the Society during this exceptionally busy time.

Colleagues from across the Society came together to develop an automated online process to make it easier for members to request a payment holiday, which went live just 10 days after the government announced the support would be available on 17 March.

Reduce call centre pressure

The simple process also reduced call volumes to the Society’s Contact Centre, freed capacity to deal with more complex enquiries and reduced wait times for members who needed to speak with a Society colleague.

Nick Young, chief transformation officer at Leeds Building Society, said: “We’ve developed our use of robotics and automation in recent years and the benefits to the Society, colleagues and our members and intermediary partners is clear – I’m pleased we were able to quickly implement this solution in order to support members during unprecedented and uncertain times.

“Delegating repetitive, formerly manual tasks to robot workers frees up our colleagues to take on other responsibilities, develop their skills and support members with more complex inquiries which need the human touch.

“The quick roll-out of the mortgage payment holiday process also allowed us to adapt as a business to work more flexibly so we could ensure services were maintained.

“As the demand for mortgage payment holidays has fallen, we continue to look at how we can further integrate automation into our business processes in a way that improves service and efficiency for our members, and helps our colleagues work more effectively and feel greater job satisfaction.”