SE Asia Banks Fearlessly Plunge into AI to Unlock Billions
SE Asian banks' AI efforts will likely be underestimated by many.
Southeast Asian nations want a piece of the $200-340 billion in productivity gains promised by McKinsey and are putting AI to work.
Some may not think of SE Asia as an AI powerhouse. It certainly isn’t if you look at it by the numbers, such as investment dollars in R&D or the number of new patents.
Instead, SE Asia offers something different but equally important: banks willing to innovate to get their hands on billions in productivity gains, and a local population that LOVES trying new technology.
This is a combination not to be underestimated.
For more on how consumers impact AI see how SE Asia
👉TAKEAWAYS (selected examples)
🔹Productivity and Collaboration:
Security Bank in the Philippines, along with Singapore, UOB participated in the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program (EAP), which gave access to the GenAI-powered productivity tools
🔹Customer Service and AI Chatbots
It's no surprise that the use of chatbots is exploding! Insurance companies Great Eastern Life, Allianz, MSIT, and Etiqa have all launched multilingual Chatbots.
Meanwhile, banks aren’t far behind. Philippine digital bank Tonik turned to GenAI to enhance its in-app chat feature, which handles nine out of ten customer queries. OCBC Banks “OCBC GPT” will be available to the bank’s 30,000 employees globally and will assist them in writing investment research reports, translating content in multiple languages, and drafting customer responses.
🔹Credit Scoring and Loan Approvals
CreditX, a Singapore SaaS credit scoring platform, has been adopted by leading Southeast Asian banks, such as Sathapana Bank in Cambodia and KBZ Bank in Myanmar. The model is used for real-time credit scoring and microloans.
🔹Financial Planning
In Malaysia, we are already witnessing the implementation of Shariah-compliant portfolios facilitated by traditional AI through robo-advisors like Airo. Never to be outdone, DBS can give personalized “nudges” to clients that include recommendations for tailored financial plans, while relationship managers can hold GenAI-augmented conversations with clients.
🔹Cybersecurity, Fraud Detection and Prevention
As a former IBMer working with banks in the Singapore office, I can safely say many banks in the region use AI for fraud detection! This is the oldest AI use in the industry, that said new GenAI detection versions are being tested.
🔹Risk Management and Compliance
No live examples in SEA yet!
Look how Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines score highly in consumer excitement about AI
👊STRAIGHT TALK👊
AI aficionados looking solely at AI by the numbers will write off SE Asia as being beyond hope.
I advise them to take another look and never look at the AI market simply by the numbers; instead, look at it by successful implementations.
Do you need an example? While not strictly SE Asia, let's look at Ant Financial’s use of AI to underwrite loans way back in 2016 before anyone cared about the AI numbers.
This is the path that SE Asia is taking. It will get its hands on AI anywhere it can and put it to work faster than bank colleagues in the West can build a proof of concept!
I guarantee that some failures will make the news, but I predict that AI implementation in SE Asia will be faster than predicted just by looking at the numbers.
Never underestimate SE Asia!
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