August 2024: Top five AI stories of the month
The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate headlines and narratives throughout the world of fintech. Here, we take a look back at five of the top AI stories from August, featuring CIBC, CaixaBank, Amount and more.
Lloyds Banking Group names Rohit Dhawan as new group director of AI and advanced analytics
Lloyds’ new head of AI Rohit Dhawan (Image: LinkedIn)
Lloyds Banking Group has appointed Rohit Dhawan as director of AI and advanced analytics, a newly created role.
Dhawan will oversee the bank’s AI Centre of Excellence, shaping its AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics strategy.
This includes promoting the adoption of AI-driven products and services to “enhance and transform the experience for the group’s 27 million customers”.
Dhawan joins from Amazon Web Services, where he acted as the regional head of data and AI strategy for Asia-Pacific over the past three years.
Pagaya set to acquire Silicon Valley’s Theorem Technology for an undisclosed sum
US-Israeli fintech Pagaya Technologies has agreed to a deal to buy Theorem Technology, a Silicon Valley-based institutional asset manager powered by machine learning tech, for an undisclosed sum.
Anticipated to close in Q4 2024, the deal will see Theorem’s institutional fund management business, consumer credit funds and engineering capabilities merge with Pagaya’s AI-powered consumer credit and residential real estate solutions.
Founded in 2014, Theorem builds and utilises machine learning models to analyse and price loans and evaluate loan origination platforms.
Pagaya expects the acquisition to grow its fund management business “to more than $3 billion of capital in investment vehicles separate from and incremental to the company’s market-leading securitisation program”.
CIBC plans to hire for 200 new data and AI roles over the next 12 months
CIBC announces plans to bolster AI tech talent
CIBC, Canada’s fifth-largest chartered bank, has unveiled plans to hire over 200 data and AI professionals within the next 12 months in a push to upgrade its AI capabilities.
The new hires will work to advance the development of “resilient and trustworthy AI solutions” throughout the bank while strengthening its AI governance, customer, and team member experiences.
CIBC claims a history of integrating AI into “key functions”, such as fraud detection, information security models and advanced risk management.
CaixaBank doubles down on generative AI with launch of GalaxIA project
Spain’s CaixaBank is launching the second phase of its generative AI initiative as it looks to further roll the technology out across the group’s operations and accelerate its GenAI projects.
The GalaxIA project will look to build on the bank’s GenIAl project launched late last year with the aim of continuing its experimentation with GenAI and exploring new potential use cases.
This includes plans to “work both on projects with immediate returns that improve quality and processing times for customers, and on medium and long-term strategic visions that substantially change the way of working in certain areas and complex business processes”.
US fintech Amount lands $30m in fresh funding to advance AI capabilities
Amount raises $30 million
Amount, a US-based digital origination and decisioning Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, has bagged $30 million in its latest equity funding round.
The firm plans to use the new funds to advance its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities and fuel its further expansion into the credit union market.
Founded in 2020, Amount’s SaaS platform has been built to power consumer and small business deposit account opening and loan origination for banks and credit unions.
The platform, Amount claims, can help financial institutions optimise their customer acquisition, funnel and performance assessments, and risk analytics and enable them “to deliver new and differentiated offerings within months, not years”.
