finance

What if the U.S. placed a tax on robots? The concept has been publicly discussed by policy analysts, scholars, and Bill Gates (who favors the notion). Because robots can replace jobs, the idea goes, a stiff tax on them would give firms incentive to help retain workers, while also compensating for a dropoff in payroll taxes when robots are used. Thus far, South Korea has reduced incentives for firms to deploy robots; European Union policymakers, on the other hand, considered a robot tax but did not enact it.

Banks and other financial institutions typically have hundreds or thousands of their headcount involved in manual IT application testing. This means testing is a big burden on their resources, especially since this industry is highly regulated. Therefore, effectively automating application testing presents a huge opportunity.

Recently the CFO Automation Experience (CFOAX) organized the webinar State of Finance Transformation. At this event, research by the Business School of the University of Amsterdam was presented on the state of the digital transformation in finance according to executives from all over Europe.

Everyone can simplify his or her work with a robot, but change is cumbersome. It is therefore important to tell employees in accessible and concrete terms how they can get started with RPA. Diana Kanostrevac of Generali Vitality discussed this process this during the recent Digital Insurance Agenda (DIA) event in Amsterdam. Her colleague Peter Stockhammer explains why RPA is indispensable in their strategy.

Head of Finance at Unilever in the Nordics, Alexey Pavlov, works with a team of 35 finance and data specialists, serving a Nordic organisation with approx. 400 employees in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. To drive Unilever’s business, the team converts data into insights by identifying processes that are very complex and highly repetitive.

“Automation is important for three very good reasons”, says Chris Argent, founder and MD of GENCFO.  After the deep insights on automation from the GENCFO live virtual summit, Chris has consolidated the importance of automation into three main reasons. 

The global robo advisory market is expected to grow from $18.71 billion in 2021 to $28.10 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50.20%. The market is expected to reach $135.11 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 48.08%, according to the report “Robo Advisory Global Market Report 2022” from ResearchAndMarkets.com.

Two years ago, Generali Group issued a new digital strategy in order to bring greater focus to their core business. The five pillars of this strategy are Agile, Innovation, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Smart Automation.

On June 14th a broad spectrum of aspects regarding automation will be highlighted at UiPath Together 2022. One of the industries which will be discussed on stage is Insurance, as sometimes unexpectedly innovative part of the sector Finance.  Rocking Robots discussed trends in insurance and automation with Elaine Mannix, Insurance Industry Expert at UiPath.

The Digital Finance Function Awards are back this summer, and will be held in person for the very first time. Hosted by GENCFO in partnership with ACCA and supported by Advanced, these awards recognise individuals and teams in the finance and accounting industry that deserve celebration.