HSBC has taken a giant stride towards having a paperless system by working with IBM to automate the trade finance transaction process.
HSBC and Big Blue will work together on a cognitive intelligence solution, combining IBM’s optical character recognition with advanced robotics to make global trade safer and more efficient for thousands of businesses.
Prior to this technological development, documents spanning as many as 100 million pages required manual review, putting into perspective the level of disruption the IBM technology is able to provide.
Natalie Blyth, HSBC’s global head of GTRF, said: “By digitising this process we will make transactions quicker and safer for both buyers and suppliers, leading our industry forwards, and we will reduce compliance risks through an enhanced ability to manage huge volumes of data.”
HSBC has been keen to implement disruptive technologies and harness their potentially advantageous attributes. The bank is among a group of other European banks working specifically to develop blockchain technology, with a target of bringing it on board within the bounds of 2017.
“The problem is how to capture semi-structured documents with highly variant content through an analogue process, and no-one has the perfect answer,” said Roger Welch, Industry (Financial) Expert and Solution Architect for IBM Analytics ECM practice. “In our experience, no trade finance solution has come as far or done as much as this new solution.”
In addition to this, HSBC has implemented voice recognition as a security measure for its banking app, using over 100 separate characteristics of the human voice to enhance security. This measure was however bested by twins.
IBM is also continuing to develop and champion technology innovation, despite being weighed down by its legacy business. Recently IBM achieved a substantial stride forwards in deep learning, achieving record results for speed and accuracy, these records were previously held by Microsoft.
READ MORE: IBM and Maersk work together to use blockchain for logistics
The journey towards achieving paperless processes has also involved developments within blockchain technology. IBM has been working with shipping and logistics giant, Maersk, to harness the capabilities of blockchain, aiming to disrupt and streamline the highly paper-based industry.
At the beginning of 2017, IBM set a new US patent record with innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, and cognitive computing, representing an energetic and forward thinking approach to cutting edge technology.