Standard Chartered and Ant International have announced a collaboration to introduce an AI-powered Treasury and FX management solution that integrates Ant International’s Falcon Time-Series Transformer (TST) Model with Standard Chartered’s Aggregated Liquidity Engine (SCALE).

Both organisations are active Pathfinder institutions in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) financial sector PathFin.ai programme.

This collaboration demonstrates how AI is being applied to enhance services in Singapore’s financial sector.

Building on a long-standing partnership in blockchain innovation, the collaboration aims to lower FX costs and improve risk management for Ant International and its clients.

The integration allows for seamless data exchange, enabling AI-driven FX forecasting in real time and on a 24/7 basis.

Jointly developed with Ant International, the integrated solution forms part of Standard Chartered’s FX Automation Programme, which supports multi-currency bookings and international vendor settlements in real time.

The programme helps businesses mitigate costs and manage FX volatility across borders.

With the integration of Falcon TST and SCALE, Standard Chartered can forecast Ant International’s FX exposures with over 90% accuracy, allowing the bank to manage FX risk more effectively and reduce clients’ hedging costs in real time.

“We continue to invest in our platforms and adopt cutting-edge technology to support our clients in effectively managing their risks and exposures, especially during these volatile times,”

said Madhu Menon, Global Head of SC PrismFX Sales at Standard Chartered.

“Our latest collaboration with Ant International sets the path for an innovative approach to managing and hedging FX risk and costs for Ant International and their clients globally. We are looking forward to further expanding our collaboration and continuing to shape the future of Treasury Management.”

Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech at Ant International, added:

“The expansion of our partnership with Standard Chartered marks an important step in our ongoing journey to leverage technology, including AI, for next-generation cross-border payment solutions. By integrating Standard Chartered’s banking capabilities with Ant International’s solutions, we can enhance how businesses manage global liquidity and FX strategy, enabling more efficient cross-border transactions.”

Ant International’s Falcon TST Model is a transformer architecture-based big data model with nearly 2 billion parameters.

Using advanced time series forecasting algorithms, the model predicts future data points by analysing complex patterns in large historical datasets.

This allows businesses to improve the accuracy of cashflow and FX exposure forecasts and potentially reduce hedging and overall FX costs.

Falcon currently forecasts Ant International’s cashflow and FX exposure on an hourly, daily and weekly basis with more than 90% accuracy.

It processes over 60% of Ant International’s transactions involving FX conversion, helping to lower FX costs by up to 60% and liquidity management costs by up to 50%.

Standard Chartered’s Aggregated Liquidity Engine (SCALE) is a flexible FX solution that supports corporates and financial institutions in pricing products or receiving payments in multiple currencies with guaranteed FX rates around the clock.

By leveraging Standard Chartered’s network, SCALE provides access to FX liquidity, reduces FX risk, and facilitates cross-border settlements.

Both Standard Chartered and Ant International remain committed to developing new technologies to support businesses’ global transaction needs.

As cross-border transactions continue to increase, the organisations will continue exploring solutions to enable more seamless and secure international business flows.

Featured image credit: Ant International