Standard Chartered and A*STAR are jointly investing S$15 million in a new Singapore lab focused on AI applications for banking and financial services.
The three-year partnership will establish an AI for Banking Innovation Lab with A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing, bringing together scientists, researchers and the bank’s internal teams to develop applied tools for financial services.
The collaboration builds on earlier work between SC Ventures and A*STAR IHPC.
Initial areas of focus include portfolio optimisation, fraud detection and natural language processing.
One project already underway is developing a natural language interface that lets relationship managers query structured databases without writing code, helping them access insights faster.
The teams are also exploring data-driven approaches to strengthen asset valuation and forecasting.
Standard Chartered said successful projects from the AI lab with A*STAR could potentially progress into spin-offs.
Alvaro Garrido, Chief Operating Officer for Technology & Operations and Chief Information Security & Data Officer at Standard Chartered, said,
“This partnership marks an exciting evolution in how we advance AI research for financial services and ultimately, for our clients. Research and experimentation are core to harnessing AI’s transformative power responsibly.
By working directly with A*STAR IHPC’s scientists, we’re building safe, scalable AI capabilities that enhance how we serve clients’ cross-border and affluent banking needs grounded in rigorous testing and real-world application from day one.”
Alex Manson, CEO, SC Ventures, said,
“As we move from banks adopting AI use cases to AI native organisations, the A*STAR-SCB partnership will leverage SC Ventures’ AI Lab to create new business models running on AI, fundamentally a different way of delivering financial services.”
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by Frolopiaton Palm via Freepik
