Banking on the future of GenAI

The paradigm shift is here: Generative Artificial Intelligence can now make processes faster and more efficient across the banking industry. The greatest risk lies in adopting a wait-and-see approach. 

 Generative Artificial Intelligence or GenAI promises to be the game changer in solving many of the trade finance industry’s complex problems, notably eliminating paper and advancing its digitization efforts. 

A collaborative effort between T3i, MyWave and Tesselate Group is at the forefront of this new frontier. According to T3i’s founding partner and trade finance industry veteran Michael Vrontamitis, much of the work that has been done in the trade finance space around document matching has seen many players adopt Large Language Models (LLMs) and GenAI to improve its accuracy. That, however, is just the start. 

A new frontier of trade finance

MyWave is now applying the foundation models they’ve built to allow corporates to effectively and efficiently drive that process.  

“When you put MyWave’s innovation of process domain models together with LLMs like what OpenAI have worked on, that’s when the magic starts to happen. We are now able to solve the problems that the banks have never been able to solve before, and we’ve also now worked out how to do that consistently, 100% of the time with compliance to a process,” said Geraldine McBride, CEO and Founder of MyWave. 

The paradigm shift, according to McBride, has happened. “It is real and it’s ready now,” she added. 

McBride set up MyWave almost a decade ago after 30 years in the technology industry, which included her role as President of SAP North America. At the heart of MyWave’s efforts is the Agentic AI, which operates as a co-worker, executing tasks either autonomously or collaboratively with human input. 

Using the example of the Letter of Credit (LC) process, McBride explains that with an Agentic AI co-worker, the LLM now understands what the human is wanting to do, reading the data from an invoice and the Agentic domain process model that powers the Agentic AI co-worker uses that data in real time to execute and complete the entire process consistently and accurately for the corporate and the bank. Done manually, the process would typically have taken 70% longer to process and perform. 

“You’ve now got a 70% boost saving time for either the corporate customer or the banker, because now the Agentic AI system, which is the AI co-worker from MyWave,” added McBride. 

MyWave’s process model is now executing that process, bringing back all the data, orchestrating the data across, say a supply chain system, and reading the associated documents that need to go with the LC. 

This is where Tesselate sees the opportunity to bring in the bankers. Casimir Veisblat, a 30-year veteran in the banking industry, co-founded Tesselate 10 years ago to specialize in advisory and consultancy services with a focus on corporate banking. 

 “This is where we brought together the power of our business knowledge and of  MyWave’s platform technology and experience in the AI world, to be able to build and orchestrate these digital processes all through the value chain of the banking process,” said Veisblat. 

Tesselate approached the collaboration from the perspective of how they could solve their banking clients’ problems in an industry where “90% of the processing is still paper based and there’re big ambitions to modernize and digitize.” 

The promise and perils 

According to McKinsey Global Institute, GenAI could add between $200 to $340 billion in value annually to the global banking sector, largely through increased productivity. 

While Gen AI holds the promise of speeding up processes, unlocking its potential isn’t without perils. The concerns around data privacy and security cannot be ignored. According to Veisblat, it’s more about protecting the knowledge that comes with foundation models, rather than strictly on protecting the data. 

“This is where the banks need guidance in terms of how they can build their own models, how they can train their own models, how they can keep the knowledge that has been put into those models and to keep a competitive advantage,” added Veisblat. 

It is this competitive advantage that should prompt the industry to take action. Vrontamitis explained that the biggest risk is not taking time to understand what GenAI is and how you can start transforming your business processes. 

“Being an early adopter is really critical to getting yourself a competitive advantage… that’s the biggest risk. People will talk about governance and other things. And yes, you have to think about AI governance and these concerns, but the lack of going for it is the biggest risk for most,” said Vrontamitis. 

The great leap forward 

Much of the conversation started moving forward when Microsoft acquired their interest in Open AI in 2019. According to McBride, that’s when it became clear to everyone that “we’re moving to an AI-first world”, where conversational AI interfaces will surpass and ultimately replace traditional menu-driven systems. 

“This is not an ‘if it’s going to happen, it’s happening now’. And if you’re not already understanding what it means to your business and to your bank, you will be left behind with an ancient, old system,” added McBride. 

Here is the reality check: with GenAI, the industry is now tackling challenges more quickly, affordably, and efficiently. Companies like MyWave and Tesselate are leading this shift by harnessing innovative technologies to address their customers’ needs. This shift is set to become the new standard, where projects can be completed in days and weeks rather than months and years. 

Listen to the full podcast here at Trade and Treasury Now.  

If you’re ready to embrace the future and explore how generative AI can transform your business, reach out to the T3i Partner Network.