Artificial intelligence is changing the dynamics of businesses and the banking system is no exception. From mobile banking to customised customer service, the role of AI technology is transformational. The hassle of standing for long hours to get banking services is slowly becoming a thing of the past for retail consumers. Consumers' desire to reach banking services from the comfort of their homes has increased the demand for mobile banking. A recent study by Insider Intelligence showed that more than 45 percent of respondents considered mobile banking among the top three features that influence their selection of financial institutions.

Financial and banking services company Standard Chartered turned to a model intelligence platform to get a clearer picture of how its algorithms make decisions on customer data. How machine learning comes to conclusions and produces results can be a bit mysterious, even to the teams that develop the algorithms that drive them -- the so-called black box problem. Standard Chartered chose Truera to help it lift away some of the obscurity and potential biases that might affect results from its ML models. "Data scientists don't directly build the models," says Will Uppington, CEO and co-founder of Truera. "The machine learning algorithm is the direct builder of the model."

Financial and banking services company Standard Chartered turned to a model intelligence platform to get a clearer picture of how its algorithms make decisions on customer data. How machine learning comes to conclusions and produces results can be a bit mysterious, even to the teams that develop the algorithms that drive them -- the so-called black box problem. Standard Chartered chose Truera to help it lift away some of the obscurity and potential biases that might affect results from its ML models. "Data scientists don't directly build the models," says Will Uppington, CEO and co-founder of Truera. "The machine learning algorithm is the direct builder of the model."

Digital Reasoning, today announced a strategic investment from SC Ventures, the innovation, ventures and fintech investments unit of Standard Chartered Bank, bringing its Series D-1 funding round total to $40 million. In addition to this investment, Digital Reasoning will partner with Standard Chartered Bank to expand its financial services product offerings in Communications Surveillance across Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and other international markets. "Digital Reasoning is the leader in communications analytics, identifying and finding key risks and insights from human language and behavior. Doing this requires an increased understanding of diverse languages and contexts across numerous cultures," "Standard Chartered is a leading global bank with a very diverse footprint. Through the partnership, we believe we can accelerate our solutions' applicability across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Together we will further democratize using AI to understand the languages in markets where these new solutions can be used for good."

In the banking business, Digital Transformation means much more than just transactions, apps and automation. There's a whole new shift that will make banking a different experience altogether. Pivoted around customers experience, self-help and omni channel enablement, this new wave will define banking of the future. Standard Chartered India's CIO Mr Zuzar Tinwalla in an exclusive interaction with Muqbil Ahmar (DC), Executive Editor, dynamicCIO reveals some of the interesting dimensions of the company's digital journey and how it is reinventing itself to empower millennials. DC: Banking and finance sector is pioneering the adoption of Digital.

The most common application being researched for machine learning is optimal execution. When large trades are executed in the market, it could potentially push prices in an unfavourable direction, so it makes sense that traders are keen on optimising this cost. So far, most of the interest in applying machine learning technology to reduce trading costs has been from the buy side. However, recent research by quants from Standard Chartered shows this may be about to change. In this month's first technical, Evolutionary algos for optimising MVA, Alexei Kondratyev, a managing director at Standard Chartered in London, and George Giorgidze a senior quantitative developer in the strats team within the same bank, propose machine learning techniques to optimise initial margin costs through trade selection.

Machine learning, a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a method of data analysis that uses algorithms to iteratively learn from data and derive insights without being explicitly programmed. We can find examples of how Machine Learning is already a part of our daily lives – like Google Maps, using location data from smartphones, analyses the speed of movement of traffic at any given time. Or like Amazon makes recommendations for products – "customers who bought this item also bought." Behind all these lie complex algorithms that are continuously learning new data and refining outcomes. In banking for example, using client's financial data, risk preferences and desired target return, 'Robo-Advisors' provide personalized, algorithm driven portfolio management services without human supervision.

Every day we hear about Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics... 'United Parcel Service saves 39 million gallons of fuel after using Big Data Analytics to optimise fleet operations'; 'PayPal uses Machine Learning on Customer, Financial and Network data to combat fraud'; 'Amazon uses Machine Learning to discover'lowest price' for over 20 million products'... Machine learning, a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a method of data analysis that uses algorithms to iteratively learn from data and derive insights without being explicitly programmed. We can find examples of how Machine Learning is already a part of our daily lives -- like Google Maps, using location data from smartphones, analyses the speed of movement of traffic at any given time. Or like Amazon makes recommendations for products -- "customers who bought this item also bought". Behind all these lie complex algorithms that are continuously learning new data and refining outcomes. In banking for example, using client's financial data, risk preferences and desired target return, 'Robo-Advisers' provide personalised, algorithm driven portfolio management services without human supervision.

The words'private banking' can evoke some stereotypical images, like leather-backed chairs in rooms with wood-panelled walls and bookshelves filled with expensive tomes or expensively attired Swiss bankers parcelling out bits of investment wisdom over snifters of brandy and cigars. One item not typically included? The rise and rise of new technology is upending many assumptions in finance. Technologically savvy companies are already competing fiercely with banks in areas such as retail banking and small company loans. They now see private banking as their next hunting ground. Automated investment programmes, often called robo-advisers, use algorithms to arrange individual investment portfolios based upon stated preferences – for a fraction of the fees charged by private banks.

Standard Chartered is moving heavily into radical new technologies that could one day see robots providing bespoke wealth advice and artificial intelligence answering customer questions. The emerging markets-focused British bank has set up a new lab called the eXellerator in Singapore in an attempt to bring theoretical ideas from Silicon Valley to life. Chief executive Bill Winters has put the centre at the heart of a 1.5bn commitment to improving computing and IT systems. Some of the ideas are also urgently needed cost-saving initiatives. The bank has hired thousands of additional compliance officers in the past three years and last year hiked annual compliance spending by an extra 1bn in an effort to stop workers breaking laws and regulations, in the wake of expensive scandals including the breaking of US sanctions against Iran.