Standard Chartered and IBM automate retrieval of key information from text within scanned trade documents

Standard Chartered and IBM automate retrieval of key information from text within scanned trade documents

(PRESS RELEASE) SINGAPORE, 23-May-2019 — /EuropaWire/ — New Augmented Intelligence (AI) engine aims at transforming the traditional Trade Documentary System. The Trade AI Engine, a joint development of Standard Chartered and IBM, has just been officially launched. It will enhance the client experience in trade document processing through increased operational efficiency and strengthened operational control.

The Trade AI Engine is already live across Asia, Africa and the Middle East in the following countries: India, Nepal, Botswana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Angola, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Mauritius, UAE, UK, Iraq, Bangladesh, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Oman.

The leading solution will soon be made available to the following countries as well: Japan, Brunei, Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, China and USA.

In general, the traditional documentary trade deals with millions of data elements in paper-based, unstructured documents that need to be largely manually reviewed. This time-consuming and high-risk process is now significantly automated due to the implementation of the Trade AI Engine powered by IBM:

• Optical Character Recognition (OCR) enables the conversion of non-digital shipping documents into machine-readable format
• Identification and classification of document types from an initial pre-defined database
• Accuracy is further improved due to the continuous machine learning (ML) based on user re-classification / re-defining of data elements
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) is applied to read and capture context from data in the documents

Standard Chartered will deploy the innovative solution to handle high volumes of diverse back office tasks with greater efficiency and accuracy, thus offering a more seamless trade processing experience for clients.

Commenting on the Trade AI Engine, Global Head, Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered, Lisa Robins said:

“As a market leader and major intermediary between buyers and sellers in the centre of global trade, we process more than 36 million pages of trade documents annually, with over 200 million data elements for name capture and processing. The Trade AI Engine significantly reduces the amount of time and effort in this review process while raising the bar on our controls environment, further enhancing our ability to play the connector role for our clients by facilitating transactions at pace with the growth of their businesses.”

The VP, Financial Services Sector of IBM Asia Pacific, Likhit Wagle, said:

“Trade document processing traditionally relies on a high degree of manual effort to ensure transaction compliance. IBM worked with Standard Chartered Bank to develop a solution that would automate the retrieval of key information from text within scanned documents. The Trade AI Engine enables multi-format document capture without templates and uses NLP to extract relevant information for review, as well as leveraging user interaction to improve text extraction accuracy and streamline the process with each cycle in real-time.”

Innovation and digital transformation is part of Standard Chartered’s commitment to deliver a differentiated and unparalleled service that aligns to the needs of its clients. The bank was one of “The Innovators 2017 – Trade Finance” for the Intelligent OCR process innovation, recognised by Global Finance. Standard Chartered is also working with Siemens Financial Services and TradeIX on caring out an industry-first client pilot to create an end-to-end blockchain-based smart guarantees proposition in trade finance. An expanded coverage of Straight2Bank Pay to additional markets in Asia has just recently been announced. Straight2Bank Pay is a digital collections gateway for corporate clients. The Straight2Bank Pay mobile app has also been made available in Singapore.

Media contacts:

Josephine Wong
Group Media Relations
+65 6596 4690

SOURCE: Standard Chartered