(Nov 20): Standard Chartered plc’s embrace of artificial intelligence (AI) has allowed the banking giant to ditch dozens of software programmes as it continues to hunt for ways to root out expenses across the firm.
That roll-up included consolidating 55 different systems used to track IT incidents into one programme, chief financial officer Diego De Giorgi said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s Chief Future Officer programme. The bank also created one super app that replaced 40 different software programmes managing everything from the firm’s pension plans to its employment contracts.
“As a CFO, you live with a lot of numbers and a lot of paper — you used to have to look at those numbers and that paper,” De Giorgi said. “Today, we almost talk to our numbers. We talk to our numbers and our numbers talk back to us. That’s one of the great powers of AI.”
Like its larger rival HSBC Holdings plc, Standard Chartered is in the midst of its own restructuring programme known as “Fit for Growth” that involves several hundred initiatives across the bank aimed at saving everything from a few hundred thousand to tens of millions of dollars.
The programme is now in the second year of its three-year delivery phase, with much of the savings expected to come this year and next. The moves have helped Standard Chartered reach its financial targets even faster than executives previously projected.
Standard Chartered and banks globally have been increasingly experimenting with AI and retraining staffers to ensure they are using the technology in their day-to-day work.
“The set of tools around AI will be amongst the most powerful in my working life — I expect maybe the most,” chief executive officer Bill Winters said in the Bloomberg Television programme. “It’s already changing the way that we monitor large volumes of transactions to help protect the bank.”
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