Siam Commercial spins off AI subsidiary

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) wants to gain first mover advantage by adopting artificial intelligence (AI) technology to analyse consumer behaviours to develop financial products and services that better serve demand.

SCB Abacus, the bank’s data unit that has been spun off into a wholly owned subsidiary, is responsible for using AI to analyse consumer behaviour.

With the bank’s big database, SCB Abacus plans to leverage AI technology to keep up with customers’ requirements.

As lifestyles become more digital, SCB Abacus aims to help the bank launch innovative products and services over the next three to six months, said SCB chief executive Arthid Nanthawithaya.

SCB Abacus is the bank’s second unit under the SCB Transformation project, designed to sharpen its competitiveness in the face of rapid changes in the global business environment. Digital Venture (DV) was set up to prepare the bank for financial technology (fintech) disruption.

SCB Transformation started in the middle of last year and runs through 2020.

Sutapa Amornvivat, chief executive of SCB Abacus, said several financial projects are in the pipeline.

“We’re testing several new innovative services, and some of them have high potential to be launched in the near future while others require more time for development,” she said.

For instance, the company has adopted Internet of Things (IoT) and AI technology to design personalised insurance products that will promote healthy lifestyles by motivating customers to engage in physical and healthy activities. The company is also working on integrating AI into SCB call centres to enable the system to analyse customers’ issues to better route them to the right contact point to improve service quality and customer satisfaction.

In the global banking industry, AI has been used for credit card fraud protection. SCB has used the technology for credit card security, but it needs further development.

The company wants to continue to develop AI technology for robo-adviser service, as well as facial recognition biometric technology for payment service.

SCB Abacus, in collaboration with the bank and DV, is creating the latest version of its mobile banking app, SCB Easy.

Registered capital for SCB Abacus is 10 million baht and it has 19 employees.

SCB shares closed yesterday on the SET at 151.50 baht, up 1.50 baht, in trade worth 1.43 billion baht.