The Bureau of the Fiscal Service within the Department of Treasury is looking to streamline the government financial processes by adopting emerging technologies with two cost-saving projects.
The first of these new projects includes the Digital End-to-End Efficiency (DEEE), which “stresses a holistic view by digitizing and automating an entire business process” as opposed to utilizing systems that automate a single task, such as RPA or AI. The Fiscal Service is partnering with two Federal agencies on this effort: the Department of Housing and Urban Development and another agency that is not ready to be announced, a Treasury Public Affairs Specialist confirmed.
“DEEE shifts away from the current trend in automating individual tasks with RPA and looks at the entire process. We want to identify improvements using a suite of automation choices, if needed, to support a seamless process,” said Fiscal Service Program Manager Cindy Good.
The second of these projects is the Blockchain for Grant Payments project allows grant recipients to use blockchain technology to “tokenize, transfer, and redeem grant payments.” This six-month project is a continuation of a 2017 effort and Treasury cites benefits of the program include increased transparency, reduced financial and labor burden, and enhanced internal controls.
“By tokenizing relevant grant award information and combining it with grant payment information on the blockchain, we attain a new payment transparency that we couldn’t reach previously without significant and burdensome reporting,” Craig Fischer, Fiscal Service Supervisory Program Manager, said.
