Artificial Intelligence is taking the Russian banking sector by storm. The new technology's unrivaled evolution is expected to help boost the competitiveness of the country's banks. However, due to shortages of people with the right skills coupled with a lack of a comprehensive infrastructure in the country, the application of the technology remains greatly hampered.
Sergey Putyantisnky, the Deputy Chairman of Credit Bank of Moscow, said that "AI is undergoing a period of unprecedented evolution. Over the next few years, the technology will progress so fast that AI will be employed in financial institutions just as often as humans." He went on to say, "Active use of AI technology will be a decisive factor in banks' competition in mass segments."
A study that was conducted by the local agency Expert RA, in conjunction with the Center for Financial Technologies found out that Russian Banks in most instances use Artificial Intelligence in credit analysis. There are yet other areas such as the; debt collection and marketing as well as the creation of individual offers for customers where AI (Artificial Intelligence) is increasing.
The study has also revealed that in most instances, the banks rely on AI in areas such as unearthing fraudulent transactions, the collection of debt, and credit scoring. Unfortunately, Russian banks don't often use AI in algorithmic trading, human resource management, or even remote customer identification as they consider these to be less promising.
Putyatinsky said that they are pragmatic about the adoption of 'hyped' technologies. They, therefore, usually start with smaller-scale pilot projects that allow them to evaluate the potential usefulness of the technology and then build up in-house competencies. He went further to reveal that they use open-source software wherever possible to make calculations for every project to determine the project's financial validity.
Rosebank, yet another major Russian lender, uses artificial intelligence to power processes that involve risk evaluation, optimization of the branch network, loan issuing, uncovering fraud, and for communications and interaction with its customers.
The head of Rosebank's data lab, Dmitry Smirnov, said, "We believe that over the next one to two years, AI will also be adopted for the bank's other processes that are not directly linked to interaction with customers. He went on and said, "Accumulating large amounts of data and the arrival of new data sources will facilitate that. We are actively exploring areas where AI could be potentially adopted. These are processes aimed at improving the organization's efficiency and, from the customer's viewpoint, processes that simplify their interaction with the bank.
