Macquarie’s Banking and Financial Services (BFS) arm will team with longstanding technology partner Google Cloud to deploy a range of AI-backed customer experience innovations, including a 12-month cashflow projection capability for customers and a generative AI capability within its contact centre.
Macquarie said the addition of new predictive analytics models will provide a targeted uplift to in-app functionality and streamline its banking function with increased automated processes.
Macquarie engineers and developers, the bank said, are currently working together with Google Cloud to build out new AI-led banking solutions.
Among the new AI and ML-powered customer functionalities being rolled out by BFS this year include a cashflow prediction feature, which can forecast customers’ personalised cashflow 12 months in advance and prompt them when their cashflow is expected to turn negative, as well as a transfer prediction capability, which, through analysis of transaction history and upcoming payments “predict, notify, and remind customers of due dates and additional relevant information” for payments.
Both capabilities utilise Google Cloud’s BigQuery solution, a serverless data warehouse offering built-in ML/AI, business intelligence and real-time analytics capabilities.
Through Google Cloud, the BFS team will also expand on its process automation capability to provide “proactive, personalised and actionable notifications that enable customers to automate regular account activity in their everyday banking”, including, for instance, automatically allocating 15 per cent of an individual’s monthly salary to their savings account.
Further enhancements will also be made to its loan application and payment fraud detection using “AI-powered algorithms” to detect fraudulent documents in loan applications and fraudulent payment activity.
The bank will soon progress to embedding generative AI use cases within its contact centre, enabling, it said, “smart agent” capabilities. Other AI use cases will look to build in “enhanced insights” for customers travelling abroad and individualised suggestions with Macquarie’s mobile app, including its Macquarie Marketplace – where customers can redeem credit card points.
BFS said: “Generative AI and ML technology will play a crucial role in the bank’s strategy to deliver further personalisation at the individual level using a 360-degree view of the customer”.
Google Cloud, Macquarie noted, “underpins all” of BFS group’s digital customer interfaces and processes, including its strategic and analytical data platforms and ML-based applications.
“With this foundation, Macquarie has been able to embed AI and ML into its digital banking and technology ecosystem, across both its operational and customer experience interfaces.
“The bank analyses more than one billion transactions daily to bring intuitive functionality to its customers.”
Macquarie began its Google Cloud journey back in 2016, alongside its migration to AWS Cloud. The bank emphasised native cloud builds, and involved a complete rebuild of its tech stack rather than the traditional ‘lift and shift’ approach.
Greg Ward, head of Macquarie’s BFS group said the organisation has made “significant investments” over the last decade “in technology that underpins our retail banking platforms, building them to be cloud-first and completely digital”.
“By leveraging that investment in our technology stack, and in partnership with Google Cloud, we’re now well positioned to take the next step by applying an AI-first approach across our digital and data platforms.
“In this next stage, we will deliver even more seamless, intuitive, and personalised digital experiences to all of our personal banking customers through new AI and ML-enabled features and functionality,” he added.
