AI Is A Banking Trend For 2025, but What About RPA?

I was browsing fintech trends on the Reuters website recently and I found this advice on what to look out for in 2025. The key points were blockchain, greater regulation, AI becoming more powerful, and open banking offering more chance for innovation. Four important trends.

This last point struck a chord with me because where I live in Brazil almost everyone now uses an open banking platform – yet when I go to Europe or the US it still seems unusual.

The Brazilian central bank mandated that all banks need to offer the option to send payments using a system they called PIX. It’s extremely simple because you can either scan a QR code in a shop or you can send cash from your banking app to an email address or phone number. If you need to send some cash to a friend then you don’t need to know their bank details, just send it to their phone number.

There are many different payment apps out there, such as Venmo or PayPal, but they are private companies, apps you need to transfer cash into. They are not just an open interface on all the existing banks. I certainly think that many developed financial markets could use a system like PIX – and it’s free.

But the news that AI is getting more powerful for banks is also important. The question here is where and how regulators will allow it to be used. In general, it needs to remain as a tool for generating efficiency and higher quality, because regulators are still wary of allowing AI to manage processes such as giving financial advice to customers.

But this is where Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can also help. It’s a proven technology that requires less experimentation than AI and is almost certainly cheaper to implement. The case studies are experience are out there.

Look at the information in this IBA Group case study about a bank using Camunda to improve workflows and automate business processes. Morgan Stanley, NatWest, ING, Goldman Sachs, Desjardins, Truist, and Santander are all using this system today. Bank of NY Mellon has automated 100 million tasks using it.

AI allows for many new innovative services and ways to interact with customers, but most of these are heavily regulated in banking. Most of the use cases for AI in banking are still focused on productivity and efficiency gains – improving business processes. There are back office uses, such as data analysis, but broadly speaking, many of the innovations that AI could offer are more controlled in banking than in other industries.

Therefore these examples of automation using RPA should be of more interest inside the banking sector. It is clear that the analysts are talking about AI as a major trend for 2025, but without really specifying how or where AI will be used.

AI will eventually be unavoidable, but the regulators need to catch up. In the meantime, these opportunities for automation with RPA should be explored in more detail – especially with such major brands already on the record and included in case studies.

For examples of IBA expertise in banking services, please click here. Follow IBA Group on LinkedIn for regular updates and comment.