{"id":117913,"date":"2025-09-03T23:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/117913\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T23:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:31:08","slug":"bank-ceos-say-ai-will-boost-productivity-and-help-fight-financial-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/117913\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank CEOs say AI will boost productivity and help fight financial crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada\u2019s biggest banks have big plans for artificial intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Top executives from all of Canada\u2019s Big Five banks told a conference Wednesday they are already using AI tools to boost staff productivity, combat financial crime and improve customer service. While embracing AI is ultimately expected to lead to more revenue, lenders are focused for the time being on using the new technology to cut costs while assuaging concerns about possible job cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t talk about \u2018this is going to eliminate jobs,\u2019\u201d Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce CM-T<\/a> chief executive Victor Dodig told investors at the annual Scotiabank Financials Summit in Toronto. \u201cIt is going to change the nature of work and actually make working at CIBC even more interesting because it will take the sand out of the gears.\u201d <\/p>\n

Harry Culham, currently chief operating officer at CIBC who will be taking over from Mr. Dodig as CEO next month, said roughly 48,000 staff have received AI training over the past year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is top-down, bottom-up, everybody is engaged and it is going to change the way we work over time, no doubt,\u201d Mr. Culham said. \u201cWe are really trying to be on the forefront.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of Canada\u2019s largest lenders are looking to use AI in hopes of gaining a competitive advantage. Leo Salom, CEO of Toronto-Dominion Bank\u2019s TD-T<\/a> U.S. division, told the conference AI \u201cis probably one of the biggest levers that the banking industry<\/a> is going to be able to embrace\u201d to foster efficiency and drive growth.<\/p>\n

Canadian CEOs are embracing generative AI for its speed and efficiency, and expect employees to get on board \u2013 or else<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Salom referred to TD\u2019s 2018 purchase of AI startup Layer 6 for more than $100-million<\/a> as evidence that the bank is \u201ctrying to build an organization that can pull through AI development activities right through to implementation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding the model is actually the easy part, it is then weaving it seamlessly into your operating processes, which is more challenging,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Automating certain software development and computer programming functions has been a low-hanging fruit for the banks. Mr. Salom said TD\u2019s technology group has seen productivity rise by more than 30 per cent since implementing AI-assisted coding.<\/p>\n

Customer service is another common part of the banking business where lenders are seeking to deploy AI through services such as chatbots that make use of large language models (LLMs) to address basic client concerns. Several executives at the conference said AI has also proven a useful tool for anti-money laundering and fraud detection and prevention initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing some pilot projects on that which are really encouraging in terms of suspicious trading and seeing the benefits of having AI help us with that,\u201d Bank of Nova Scotia BNS-T<\/a> CEO Scott Thomson told investors. \u201cAnd given the increasing instances of fraud across all the banks, there is a real opportunity for AI to help on the fraud side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: Canada\u2019s risk-averse businesses are slouching toward AI<\/a><\/p>\n

Even local bank branches are being targeted for AI-based productivity improvements. Royal Bank of Canada RY-T<\/a> CEO Dave McKay said AI is allowing RBC to keep more branches open by making them more efficient.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can turn a specialist into a generalist with an LLM, you can create more capacity to do mortgages and to do advice through LLMs in the branch,\u201d Mr. McKay said. \u201cWe are focused more on increasing the efficiency and the productivity of those units than on closing them right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scotiabank\u2019s Mr. Thomson said there will eventually be \u201ca big revenue opportunity\u201d for banks that embrace AI, \u201cbut right now we are focused more on the client experience and the cost side as opposed to the revenue-generation side.\u201d<\/p>\n

That prediction was echoed by several of Mr. Thomson\u2019s counterparts, though none provided specifics on how AI will help the banks spur more direct business growth.<\/p>\n

Also at the conference Wednesday, executives broadly played down the possibility of short-term growth coming through a more traditional avenue: mergers and acquisitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of buyers and very few sellers out there, so you\u2019ve got to expect that the premiums on any type of M&A are going to get bid up so high it is going to stress your playbook,\u201d RBC\u2019s Mr. McKay said.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Bank of Montreal BMO-T<\/a> was on the hunt for acquisitions again now that its US$16.3-billion purchase of San Francisco-based Bank of the West in 2023 has long since closed, CEO Darryl White said the lender was currently more focused on organic growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never turn off the M&A antenna because you need to know what is going on,\u201d Mr. White said. \u201cBut the really important thing is to be disciplined about not swinging at every pitch.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s biggest banks have big plans for artificial intelligence. Top executives from all of Canada\u2019s Big Five banks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,901,276,277,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-117913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alberta","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}