Abstract
Like many service industries, the financial industry is largely characterized by administrative and back-office processes and distinguished by a broad systems landscape with a high proportion of legacy systems. Missing interfaces between information systems, user interfaces, or web applications often require many manual activities. As banks are often functionally organized into traditional departments, a process-oriented organizational structure is rarely in place. The financial industry therefore offers enormous potential for the use of robotic process automation (RPA) and the raising of potential benefits such as process-related cost savings, time reductions, and quality improvements. The aim of this chapter is to describe the tremendous opportunities that the use of RPA technology offers to the financial industry and to explain how these opportunities can be realized. Therefore, we start by explaining the challenges that progressive digitalization poses to the industry and how RPA, but also more advanced technologies (that work not only rule-based but also define own rules), such as artificial intelligence, can help to overcome them. As well as providing an overview of the various applications of RPA in the financial industry, we also provide a comprehensive case study of a relevant practical application.
