According to a report in the Australian publication Financial Review, large financial services organisations such as AMP and Westpac are considering automating back office and finance functions.

Like most projects involving robotics and automation, it is reported that AMP is "not looking to automate to replace roles" but rather to "automate small, time-consuming processes, such as data entry" and free up employees to "focus on higher-value tasks that add real value to the customer".

ANZ Bank also divulged to the publication that it “had been refining over the last 12 months a program in the emerging field of robotics process automation which will change the composition of its workforce.”

While Westpac want to automate currently clunky manual processes in its business banking division that are performed onshore in Australia.

Simen Munter, ANZ Bank's general manager of group hubs said robotics is top of the agenda for the business process outsourcing industry, which includes brands like Wipro, Hewlett-Packard, Tata Consulting Services, IBM and Accenture. He went on to say "If you are a BPO vendor and you are not offering something in this space, then it is like trying to sell a car without airbags… It is technically possible but nobody wants to buy it."

You can find out more about automation, digitalisation and robotics at the EOA’s forthcoming Leadership Summit & Awards taking place in Lisbon, Portugal. For details please visit http://www.noa.co.uk/eoa-leadership-summit-and-awards/

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