The agreement is all of a piece with a trend of greater use of AI in its various forms within the world's banking and wealth management industry.

UOB and Accenture have agreed to work on AI projects for the next three years, the first time that the US-listed professional services firm has worked with a Singapore bank. 

Under the memorandum of understanding, UOB will exploit Accenture’s suite of AI-powered assets – including its AI Refinery™platform – to accelerate the bank’s moves to use generative AI. 

The pact is an example of how AI is permeating the banking and wealth management sector across the board. Use cases for AI are many: this news service has explored examples such as the “co-pilot” model here. Many of the steps for advisors at a private bank and wealth management firm involve pulling together disparate information, often supported by different tech stacks. This then has to be synthesised to generate insights. Generative AI can quickly process all this, saving advisors and others hours of time. And time is money. 

UOB wants to use AI to improve business processes, productivity, risk management, and deliver personalised customer service more rapidly and at a larger scale.

UOB staff will be able to use programs through Accenture’s LearnVantage training services.

According to Ireland-headquartered compliance technology firm Fenergo, only 1 per cent of the banks which it has surveyed successfully automated most of their KYC and onboarding workflows; there is a growing appetite for AI-driven solutions. Some 38 per cent of respondents indicated plans to deploy AI to enhance operational efficiency, while 30 per cent aim to improve data accuracy with AI-powered tools. There is work to be done. Recent SimCorp research, among 200 senior leaders at asset managers and asset owners, showed that 75 per cent of them said they were “somewhat prepared” for AI.

See an example here of how AI can be used to raise workforce skills and capabilities.