Lloyds Bank continues to step up its use of AI, following its creation of a dedicated leadership role in the space with a freshly signed external partnership.
The bank has struck a deal with Cleareye.ai, an AI platform which specialises in compliance checking of trade finance documentation. The deal demonstrates how AI is impacting various aspects of financial services.
Starting this month, Lloyds will adopt the firm’s ClearTrade technology, including optical character recognition, machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to examine trade documentation.
The bank hopes to leverage AI to extract information like import and export documentary letters of credit, documentary collections, undertakings and trade loans from the assessed documents. This will in turn enhance its compliance with regulatory requirements, including trade-based money laundering (TBML) checks.
Rogier van Lammeren, Head of Trade and Working Capital Products at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said: “We’re continually looking for ways to help our clients trade simpler, faster and more efficiently and our partnership with Cleareye.ai enables us to deliver this.
“Using their AI technology, we will streamline critical parts of trade finance processes that we know are important to our clients.”
AI has become all the rage in finance over the past year or two. This deal between Lloyds and Cleareye demonstrates why financial firms are so keen to use the tech.
Put simply, AI helps banks conduct extensive tasks easily and efficiently, primarily by sifting through vast volumes of data and information. By doing so, this simplifies processes like fraud prevention, AML and product design, among other areas.
As noted above, Loyds has been seeking tech talent to guide its AI journey. The firm hired Rohit Dhawan as Director of AI and Advanced Analytics, a critical AI-related role, just last month.
Various businesses are benefiting from finance services interest in AI. This has included through funding, with AI startups capturing the attention of numerous investors, but in the case of firms like Clearaye.ai, also securing contacts with prominent banks.
Mariya George, CEO and Co-Founder at Cleareye.ai, remarked: “Lloyds Bank is a global trailblazer in digital trade – something that, in part, has been achieved through its ability and appetite to forge strategic partnerships.
“We’re proud to be working together to apply our technology to its trade finance and compliance processes and look forward to seeing the benefits for the bank’s clients and its colleagues who serve them.”
