In Asia Pacific (APAC), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are increasingly being deployed in credit and risk functions for improved credit assessment, credit scoring and fraud detection. Moving forward, AI will no longer be an option for banks and financial institutions but rather a necessity, enabling them to meet rising customer expectations, tap new business opportunities, and address the rapidly evolving fraud landscape, data specialists and top finance executives said in a recent webinar. During Fintech Fireside Asia's latest panel discussion, C-level executives representing Union Bank of the Philippines, credit bureau TransUnion, lending startup Funding Societies and data solutions provider Mobilewalla discussed the state of AI adoption across APAC's financial ecosystem, delving into how predictive modeling and ML are now being used in the lending process. For Anindya Datta, Founder, CEO, Chairman, Mobilewalla, AI offers an opportunity to deliver innovative business models that can leapfrog traditional solutions and reach the unbanked, a potential that's particularly relevant in Southeast Asia considering that more than 70% of the region's adult population remain either unbanked or underbanked today. "A major part of decision making in lending is around figuring out how likely a person is going to pay back and whether they will pay back in time. Why it's so interesting In emerging markets, especially in APAC, is because the credit footprint is small [and a lot of people don't] have credit scores," Anindya said.

Conversational messaging platform Gupshup announced the acquisition of Active.Ai, a conversational AI platform used by banks and fintech firms. The sum was not disclosed. The acquisition aims to strengthen Gupshup's customer experience solutions for its banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) customers. Headquartered in Singapore, Active.Ai serves BFSI customers across 43 countries with its Conversational Banking as a Service (CBaaS) platform. Active.Ai said it has enabled more than 300 million user interactions via voice, video and messaging, managed over 30 million service requests and fulfilled 50 million plus enquiries in aggregate, with 95 percent accuracy.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in financial services is all over the news, with some reports estimating it to be a US$450 billion opportunity. But what's the real story around what AI can do? Beyond just automating certain processes, AI has the potential to improve accuracy in credit or risk decisioning workflows, encouraging financial inclusion and allowing the underbanked and unbanked access to financial services in ways that were previously unreachable. Over 3 billion people in Asia have no access to formal credit and three of the top ten'most unbanked' countries in the world happen to be located in APAC (Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia). Finding innovative ways to enable more access to financial services is critical.

With data becoming a core business asset for financial companies, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) continues to be a focal point in maximising the competitive advantage of this'new oil'. This is according to a new study by LSEG Labs, The Defining Moment for Data Scientists, on the applications of AI/ML in financial services. The study found that the adoption of AI/ML within organisations has remained steady since 2018. Over the last three years, between 40-50% of respondents reported deploying AI/ML in multiple areas. The survey is based on responses from 482 data scientists, quants, model governance professionals and C-suite executives, from both sell-side and buy-side financial institutions.

Bangkok Bank PLC announced the launch of its Thai language Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered chatbot that was built in-house in a joint collaboration with Singapore-based fintech startup Pand.ai. The chatbot called TT01 was a result of Bangkok Bank's innovation programme, InnoHub. The development began earlier this year and the chatbot was fully completed in October. The solution will be available to clients of Pand.ai. Meanwhile, Bangkok Bank will use this as a digital sales assistant on LINE for their sales and relationship managers, scheduled to launch in Q1 2021.

In Asia Pacific (APAC), adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in financial markets is accelerating. Though organizations in the Americas still lead in terms of AI/ML maturity and investment levels, those in APAC follow closely behind, according to a new research by Refinitiv, a leading provider of financial market data and infrastructure. Refinitiv, which surveyed more than 420 data scientists, quants, technology and data decision-makers, found that 69% of respondents in APAC view AI/ML as a core component of their business strategy, and 78% are making significant investment in AI/ML. COVID-19 is expected to further push adoption of AI/ML. According to the study, 31% of respondents in Asia said that AI/ML has become more important in their organization as a result of the pandemic, and 35% anticipate increased investment in AI/ML amid the public health crisis.

Advances in technological fields including artificial intelligence (AI) and biometrics are providing new ways for financial institutions and startups to combat the surge in fraud and financial crime resulting from the rise of digital banking and fintech. With governments across Asia Pacific (APAC) pushing for greater adoption of digital technologies to boost financial inclusion, financial-related crimes and fraud attempts have proliferated across the region. The shift of banking to digital channels has not only transformed the way people access banking and manage their finances; it has also led to a revolution in banking fraud and financial crime, turning it into a fast-growing global industry. Global losses due to card fraud alone cost almost US$27.85 billion in 2018 and could reach US$44 billion by 2025, according to the Nilson Report. In APAC, the introduction of real-time payments in particular has led to a significant increase in payment fraud, with four in five APAC banks witnessing a rise in losses, according to results from a Fico survey released in January 2020.

DBS is taking steps to future-proof its workforce by announcing a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to ensure its employees are equipped with fundamental skills in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) by the end of the year. The bank has set its sights on accelerating the use of AI and ML across its business. To enable this, DBS and AWS have jointly launched the DBS x AWS DeepRacer League. With this initiative, DBS employees will learn the basics of AI and ML by participating in a series of hands-on online tutorials before putting their new knowledge to the test by programming their own autonomous model race car. These ML models are then uploaded onto a virtual racing environment where employees can experiment and iteratively fine-tune their models as they engage each other in friendly competition. "We have never believed in limiting digital expertise to a small team.

Two recent studies have found Singapore to be the world's most prepared city for the age of artificial intelligence (AI), and the global leader in terms of smart city effort. The first research, conducted by the Oliver Wyman Forum, ranks 105 international cities in terms of their preparedness for the technological and digital disruption that will be spurred by AI. The index ranks cities on four key criteria: the quality of a city's plan (Vision); a city's ability to execute on forward-looking plans (Activation); the extent and quality of talent, education, and infrastructure (Asset Base); and how the interplay of Activation and Asset Base are impacting its overall momentum (Trajectory). With an average score of 75.8 out of 100, Singapore showed the most readiness overall, surpassing London (75.6), One key finding from the study is that although megacities like London, New York and Paris, have well-scaled business communities and talent pools, smaller cities can be just as competitive technology-wise.

Each month, over two million banking transactions and services are performed using the OCBC Mobile Banking app. Since 19 August 2019, the app has offered an AI-powered voice-based virtual assistant – which has helped with over 20,000 requests made via voice. In half of these requests, the customer was seeking information about spending categories and budgets; another 30 per cent concerned past banking transactions. Other mobile banking services that were performed using voice included locating ATMs, paying bills and changing banking PINs. The new voice-activated banking service, which was developed and trained over 13 months and is called the OCBC Banking Assistant, 'lives' in the OCBC Mobile Banking app.