Singapore – Relationship managers at Standard Chartered will soon be able to easily search multiple databases to see, for example, whether a customer is eligible for a loan.
They will be able to tell their artificial intelligence chatbot, “Show me this client’s payments over the past few months, broken down by currency and payment network.”
Currently, relationship managers must manually access multiple databases and extract information to assess whether a customer can apply for a mortgage or take out a personal loan.
However, the three-year partnership between StanChart and Singapore’s A*STAR To accelerate AI applications The financial sector wants to facilitate this process.
Under the partnership, the bank and the A*STAR Institute for High Performance Computing (IHPC) will commit a total of $15 million to establish the AI for Banking Innovation Lab, comprised of technical scientists and researchers from both organizations.
This will enable the bank to leverage A*STAR IHPC’s pool of AI expertise in high-performance and applied AI research, supported by a team of research scientists. The institute’s research focuses on computer science, AI, simulation, and modeling.
A*STAR IHPC researchers will also be able to work closely with the bank’s internal data and AI teams in the field on ongoing projects to help develop applied customer-centric AI applications.
Patrick Lee, StanChart’s chief executive officer for Singapore, ASEAN and South Asia, said digital banking has changed customer expectations and stressed the need to invest in safe and responsible AI applications to more closely connect research and real-world applications.
Álvaro Garrido, chief operating officer of technology and operations at StanChart, said the project to develop natural language interfaces for banking systems will help significantly speed up analysis and improve productivity.
Such capabilities will help relationship managers improve their overall insight into their clients’ portfolios, he added.
“This partnership aims to accelerate the application of AI research into practical, client-centric prototypes, rather than operating as a purely academic or off-site research program,” said Garrido, who is also chief information security and data officer at StanChart.
Other financial institutions are also beginning to leverage AI to streamline processes, such as automating call center functions and speeding loan approvals.
For example, in October 2025, Bank of Singapore launched an AI tool that generates a “source of wealth” report that details an individual or entity’s total assets and their origins, clarifying the legitimacy of a customer’s assets.
The tool reduces the time it takes to create such reports from 10 days to just one hour, giving bank relationship managers more time to better understand their customers’ financial needs and consider their portfolios.
In addition to natural language processing, topics explored in the A*STAR and StanChart partnership include portfolio optimization and fraud detection.
Garrido said portfolio optimization focuses on leveraging advanced AI and machine learning to improve how banks assess, balance and manage risk and return across corporate lending.
The partnership will enable the bank to build predictive and optimization models that help it better understand its exposures across industries, regions and market conditions, he added.
He said further enhancements to AI and machine learning to improve fraud detection could help banks more effectively discover and prevent financial fraud, such as detecting business email compromises, account takeovers, and other types of fraud by analyzing historical and cross-border payment patterns.
