Bank of Singapore’s new AI tool can do in one hour what took staff 10 days

SINGAPORE – Bank of Singapore, OCBC Bank’s private banking arm, has launched an agentic artificial intelligence (AI) tool to shorten the time it takes to generate source-of-wealth reports.

Relationship managers can tap the tool to draft such reports in as little as an hour – down from the usual timeline of 10 days – while ensuring alignment with regulatory standards, the bank said on Oct 10.

Such reports detail a person’s or entity’s total assets and their origins over time, helping financial institutions form a clearer understanding of their customers and the legitimacy of the customers’ assets.

The bank’s head of platform and analytics for financial crime compliance Kelvin Chiang said that relationship managers can then spend more time engaging clients to better understand their financial needs and review their wealth portfolios.

Previously, relationship managers manually reviewed hundreds of pages of documents on clients’ backgrounds, investment histories, business activities, professional careers and corroborative evidence to write the source-of-wealth report.

These documents typically include financial statements, tax notices, property valuation records, corporate filings and payslips.

The tool will automatically review the documents that have been gathered and uploaded into the tool by the relationship manager, and generate a comprehensive, well-structured and standardised report.

This can help to minimise human errors, such as inconsistent and missing information that may arise during manual processes carried out by relationship managers with varying experience.

The tool will leverage Bank of Singapore’s and OCBC’s databases to validate the information provided by clients, using benchmarks such as salary and company revenue.

Relationship managers still have to maintain oversight of the reports by reviewing and refining the AI-generated drafts before submitting them for further assessment by internal review teams.

Mr Chiang said the bank has a centralised guard-rail system monitoring the accuracy and consistency of all generative and agentic AI models in OCBC, which includes checking for AI hallucinations.

Unlike generative AI (Gen AI), which reacts to prompts and does not act on its own, agentic AI systems can independently start tasks, coordinate tools across multiple platforms, adapt dynamically in real time and continuously enhance their performance through memory and learning, the bank said.

“While AI can help to speed up processes, human review remains critical,” Mr Chiang noted.

Bank of Singapore’s global head of financial crime compliance Kam Chin Wong said that AI can automate repetitive tasks, including report generation and data validation.

“Agentic AI pushes the envelope further by enhancing efficiency, accuracy and consistency in decision-making. With AI integrated into the source-of-wealth reporting process, relationship managers can shift their focus from manual documentation to meaningful client engagement and risk assessment,” he said.

“This not only strengthens client relationships, but also maintains high standards of regulatory compliance while delivering greater value.”

Relationship manager Ruth Yeo said the tool has helped to make the draft reporting process more intuitive.

“Instead of spending days sifting through e-mails and documents, looking for the relevant information before writing the source-of-wealth report, all I need to do now is verify the uploaded details and refine the write-up generated by the source-of-wealth assistant.”

Other local banks are also making inroads into using agentic AI.

Mr Nimish Panchmatia, chief data and transformation officer at DBS Bank, said agentic AI is already being applied within the bank.

One initiative involves corporate relationship managers and credit risk managers tapping agentic AI to generate key documents, including account plans, client dossiers and credit memos.

UOB, too, announced in April that it will tap Accenture’s assets to support its application and adoption of advanced technologies, such as Gen AI and agentic AI.

A UOB spokesperson said the bank’s agentic capabilities are projected to be ready by December.