A transformational journey: Artificial intelligence in financial services

Abstract

New technologies hold promise for both improving the relationship between financial services institutions and their customers and strengthening the financial outcomes for larger swathes of our society if this is done responsibly. Despite the heightened interests of artificial intelligence (AI) in financial services, however, there still exists a significant gap between expectation and reality. Through examples from customer service, personal finance and wealth management to credit decisioning and risk management, this paper highlights recent developments where AI has been employed to drive business outcomes. The paper also challenges the reader to dig deeper into ethics and trust — the very values that are uniquely human — and to reflect on the safeguards that need to be in place to ensure accountability, transparency, fairness and auditability, as more use cases move from pure research and development into real-world applications in our daily lives. The paper concludes that the industry must move beyond efficiency and cost savings to an era where AI-driven applications are more intentional and purposeful in transforming human lives.