UK bank appoints its first executive position dedicated to artificial intelligence as the technology embeds across the sector
HSBC has named its first chief artificial intelligence (AI) officer as the UK high street giant plans to embed the technology across the company.
David Rice, who has worked at HSBC for 19 years, moves from his role as chief operating officer at the bank’s corporate and institutional bank to the position for 1 April.
As banks put AI at the centre of their plans going forward, the technology is receiving a seat alongside to executives.
Georges Elhedery, group CEO of HSBC, said AI plays a key role in enabling staff to create what customers want.
“Our ambition here is simple – we will empower our colleagues to use AI to create a personalised experience for each customer, deliver it safely, in real time and at scale, while keeping human judgement, decision-making and accountability at the core,” he said.
Rice, in his role, will help the bank reach this ambition, added the bank chief.
“Our customers increasingly expect their bank to deliver services uniquely aligned to their specific needs, and fast,” he said. “That’s why we’re building a bank that is designed for the future.”
Deploying AI at scale
HSBC also said it was expanding the remit of chief technology officer Mario Shamtani to strengthen the foundations to deploy AI at scale. “This includes modernising core platforms, building a central AI platform colleagues can use to access a range of models, and leading key strategic partnerships,” said the bank.
In his LinkedIn profile, Rise states: “I am dedicated to harnessing the power of emerging technologies to shape the future of banking and drive innovation in this exciting era of AI and quantum computing.”
According to Evident’s banking AI adoption index, which tracks financial services AI adoption, HSBC was the only UK bank in the top 10.
Evident CEO Alexandra Mousavizadeh said UK banks need to be more like Big Tech when it comes to their AI adoption if they are to catch up with their US counterparts.
Talent is key in being able to do this, she told Computer Weekly. “As we all know, there’s a war on talent, and that’s intensifying as the race for enterprise AI adoption increases,” she said.
“Your talent is your destiny,” added Mousavizadeh. “That’s always been true, but I think for now it’s even more true because we’re in this pivot moment, where there’s been a couple of years of experimentation and testing with use cases being implemented, but it’s very surface-level.”
Banking AI leaders in the UK will be eagerly awaiting the outcome of the Financial Conduct Authority review of the potential long-term impacts of AI after the regulator warns the financial services sector faces the prospect of “non-human intelligence surpassing human reasoning”.
The Mills Review, as it is known, will focus on what impact AI could have on consumers, finance firms and regulators in the future.
The FCA’s announcement quickly followed a Treasury Committee warning last week that financial regulators’ current approach to AI is exposing the UK public and the country’s financial system “to potential serious harm”.
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Yuri Kucera