  An anomalous emission component at energies of a few GeV and located towards
the inner Galaxy is present in the Fermi-LAT data. It is known as the Fermi-LAT
GeV excess. Using almost 8 years of data we reanalyze the characteristics of
this excess with SkyFACT, a novel tool that combines image reconstruction with
template fitting techniques. We find that an emission profile that traces
stellar mass in the boxy and nuclear bulge provides the best description of the
excess emission, providing strong circumstantial evidence that the excess is
due to a stellar source population in the Galactic bulge. We find a luminosity
to stellar mass ratio of $(2.1\pm 0.2)\times 10^{27}
\mathrm{\,erg\,s^{-1}\,M_\odot^{-1}}$ for the boxy bulge, and of $(1.4\pm
0.6)\times 10^{27}\mathrm{\,erg\,s^{-1}\,M_\odot^{-1}}$ for the nuclear bulge.
Stellar mass related templates are preferred over conventional DM profiles with
high statistical significance.

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena