Citigroup says AI helps speed account openings and systems upgrades

Citigroup is using artificial intelligence ⁠to speed ⁠up account openings and the retirement of old software, the US bank's head of technology, Tim Ryan, said, as the firm pushes to improve productivity. 

US banks are embracing AI, the biggest technological upheaval ‌to the world economy since the internet, to boost ‌productivity ‌and, in some cases, cut jobs.

"We still have ‌legacy systems, but after the tech investments we’ve ⁠made, we are in a much better place," Ryan said in an interview.

"AI helps migrate data from legacy systems, automate coding and test more and faster."

AI is also being used to speed client onboarding. ​A system to process documents has shaved an hour off the time required to review documents before opening an ⁠account in the US for the services division, to 15 minutes, Ryan added. 

Ryan joined Citigroup from PwC less than two years ago and is revamping the tech division to rely as much as possible on employees rather than external contractors. 

Ryan told staff a year ago the bank was planning to dramatically reduce its reliance on information technology contractors and hire thousands of employees for IT, Reuters reported. 

The ​lender has sharply increased its investments in ⁠technology over the last five years to comply ⁠with regulatory requests, among other reasons. 

Citigroup is under two consent orders issued in 2020 by the ​Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that ‌required the bank ⁠to increase risk management controls and fix regulatory data inaccuracies and governance. 

A year ago, contractors made up around 50 percent of Citi's technology workforce and the bank planned to reduce that ‌to 20 percent. The bank is "halfway through" the plan to reduce the use of contractors, Ryan said.

He said the bank hired more software engineers and has a tech workforce of around 50,000 people.

Citi wants to ​rely more on internal staff as it increases investments in the development and deployment of AI tools and wants to implement consistent AI tools across the company. 

Citigroup is choosing critical ‌internal processes ⁠for review and automation. Among ​the first 50 processes are client and employee onboarding, as well as some "know your customer" policies.