Since 2018, artificial intelligence has played an important role in CTBC’s digital strategy, fueled by an in-house research laboratory with over 200 data points and scientists specialized in artificial intelligence. Currently, this initiative covers more than 50 departments across three main areas of activity. With over 100 active AI applications in development, the bank has experienced explosive growth in AI usage of 150% year-on-year. Wang emphasizes CTBC’s vision: “Our goal is to scale AI adoption and deliver tangible benefits.”
CTBC aims to leverage both GenAI and traditional artificial intelligence to enhance personalized banking experiences and seamlessly deliver next-generation banking services.
Real-time fraud prevention with AI
Digital account fraud is a major problem for global financial services, increasing by 45% annually. Using artificial intelligence, CTBC challenged this trend: its innovative AI fraud detection system Skynet reduced credit card account fraud by 6% in 2024. Wang attributes AI Skynet’s success to its robust technology:
“For each transaction, the AI model can evaluate 100,000 fraud rules within 30 milliseconds.”
Next year, CTBC plans to expand real-time AI detection beyond credit cards to all transactions. The bank is also testing applications to use artificial intelligence models in anti-money laundering systems and will continue to collaborate with government and law enforcement agencies to prevent fraud in the ecosystem.
Sustainable development of artificial intelligence
After years of testing, CTBC has identified six core technologies that underpin their digital evolution. Wang said, “To be sustainable, AI efforts must address the following challenges: revenue generation, process efficiency, OCR for document digitization, identity verification, intelligence generation, and RegTech for risk management. This will ensure we create the best use cases for our customers and businesses.”
Future innovations will use optical character recognition technology to digitize complex documents and advanced facial recognition through multimodal verification technology. CTBC leverages the data resources of both retail and corporate banking, providing deeper insight across the enterprise.
Data + Management + Talent
GenAI is data-intensive, but Wang explained, “Our customers’ transaction data is good, but it’s not enough to expand GenAI. To deliver value, we inject the knowledge and ideas of our experienced senior bankers into the AI brain.” He says that to successfully implement GenAI, the CTBC data center needs both “the right management and the right talent.”
