[ad_1]
[ad_2]
Vaidik Trivedi
Source link
[ad_1]
Citizens Bank Chief Information Officer Michael Ruttledge is focused on AI, training and employee retention as the bank continues its digitalization.
In the second quarter, the $222 billion bank explored use cases for generative AI to identify added efficiencies, Ruttledge previously told Bank Automation News.
As Citizens implements AI, the bank is also training its team through its engineering academy, which focuses on building internal capabilities to support the bank’s technology transformation, he said.
In an interview with Bank Automation News, Ruttledge discussed AI use cases, developments in technology and training techniques throughout the bank. What follows is an edited version of the conversation:
Bank Automation News: What AI trend in finance are you focused on?
Michael Ruttledge: Generative AI has the potential for great efficiencies and countless ways to improve overall customer experience. This is an exciting time for the industry. We have an opportunity to truly reset the productivity curve for the bank.
AI has the potential to help us learn about our customers at an accelerated pace and constantly update, improve and adapt priorities as conditions change over time. Citizens has a number of AI use cases that we are actively exploring, and those use cases are to benefit customer engagement, customer and colleague insights, and streamlined operations.
Additional implementation includes safety and security, legal and compliance, fairness and bias, and performance and accuracy. We are working to assess where existing capabilities can be leveraged and built out.
BAN: What other projects are you working on this year?
MR: For the remainder of 2023 and as we look ahead, we will accelerate to deliver differentiating, market-leading capabilities beyond our next-gen technology strategy. Citizens is focused on three areas:
Through 2026, we will position Citizens’ technology to have leading capabilities to drive continued business value.
BAN: How do you approach new technology with your team?
MR: To prioritize innovation to the extent we do, we need not only financial, but top talent resources to dedicate to it. At Citizens, we are constantly looking to the new digital frontiers, and we prioritize a healthy organization and view each employee as a whole person beyond the figurative four walls of our office.
Our talent is what keeps us future-ready, cultivating our strategic partnerships, exploring new technology and ensuring we and our customers are protecting against any risk.
The key is a strong focus on engineering skills, diversity, early career talent and retention. Since 2019, we have hired more than 550 full-stack engineers, reduced contractors and have increased our organization’s diversity and internal mobility.
BAN: What technology are you monitoring closely?
MR: Like everyone else, we are monitoring generative AI closely. We think it has great potential, especially when it comes to improving the customer experience.
Banks can introduce future-proof technologies and processes to keep up with customers by empowering their CIOs and IT teams to help build deeper relationships with customers and focus the shift from transactions to relationships through automation and automating tasks and transactions. This would allow branch colleagues and relationship managers to have the time to build relationships and serve in a more advisory manner.
It goes without saying that a digital transformation and the customer experience should be always at the forefront. At Citizens, we focus on using data to improve our customers’ experience and help them achieve their financial goals and reach their potential.
BAN: How do you lead your team?
MR: I strive to lead by example while at the same time empowering my team to make decisions and motivating them to reach their full potential. I also hold my team accountable as it not only helps them to grow in their roles but also as leaders.
Our Employee Value Plan (EVP) is an example of my leadership in action — I have empowered my leadership team to help deliver and drive this program for our colleagues. Through EVP, we have improved our hiring model, provided training opportunities and focused on diversity and early career talent.
[ad_2]
Whitney McDonald
Source link
[ad_1]
Artificial intelligence has revolutionized credit decisioning. What was once a slow, manual and subjective process is becoming highly automated, and the all-important act of approving or denying credit is increasingly being turned over to highly sophisticated neural networks. Compared with the simple logistic regression models still used by many financial institutions, AI models can provide […]
[ad_2]
Victor Swezey
Source link
[ad_1]
[ad_2]
Vaidik Trivedi
Source link
[ad_1]
[ad_2]
Vaidik Trivedi
Source link
[ad_1]
[ad_2]
Vaidik Trivedi
Source link
[ad_1]
Citizens Bank aims to retrain its workforce as it explores use cases of generative AI within contact center systems, advising and coding.
As the $222 billion bank invests in AI, it is looking to its workforce to execute its initiatives rather than looking outward, Beth Johnson, chief experience officer at Citizens Bank, told Bank Automation News.
“If we can give [our team] better tools to answer questions faster, if we can train them faster, make them more efficient,” that would add value to the bank’s operations, Johnson said.
For example, within branches, the bank aims to train its workers to provide advice in addition to working as a teller, Michael Ruttledge, chief information officer at Citizens Bank, told BAN.
“We’ve also taken some folks out of the branch, and we’re training them as engineers,” Ruttledge said. “We have got an academy program where we take people who are non-tech but have the aptitude and the skill to be able to learn that and grow that.”
The bank also looks to train employees who have a computer science or data science degree but did not go into that field, he said.
While a recent Challenger, Gray and Christmas report stated that nearly 4,000 jobs were eliminated in May 2023 due to increasing use of AI in companies, experts believe it’s too early to say how AI will affect the job market.
“Technology is going to increase the productivity of the banks and the workforce at the same time, and when we see change, there’s always incredible increase in the amount of work they have to do to actually roll out change,” Carlo Giovine, a partner at QuantumBlack, McKinsey & Co.’s artificial intelligence arm, told BAN.
The increased productivity can allow banks to double down on customer experience or enter new businesses, Giovine said.
“I think the next year will be mostly experimenting with technology, updating risk frameworks and then adding guardrails to essentially prevent misuse, prevent audit risks that we know these models are capable of,” he said. “I don’t expect dramatic changes, but then, as it’s become more mainstream, and is more proven and safer, we may see banks taking different stances.”
[ad_2]
Vaidik Trivedi
Source link
[ad_1]
[ad_2]
Vaidik Trivedi
Source link
[ad_1]
[ad_2]
Vaidik Trivedi and Victor Swezey
Source link
[ad_1]
[ad_2]
Whitney McDonald
Source link