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Lloyds Banking Group has poached Amazon Web Services executive Rohit Dhawan to steer its artificial intelligence strategy, a brand new position the British branch bank is creating as a part of its digitalisation efforts.
Lloyds announced on Monday that it had hired Dhawan as its first group head of AI and advanced analytics.
Dhawan, who holds a PhD in AI from the University of Sydney, previously led AWS's data and AI strategy in Asia Pacific. He will report back to Ranil Boteju, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Lloyds.
The move comes as banks look to adopt AI and machine learning more widely to spice up productivity and reduce costs. Some experts have warned that incumbent banks have been slow to implement the technology on account of regulatory concerns. Morgan Stanley was certainly one of the primary lenders to appoint a bunch head of AI in March.
“Rohit's appointment represents a major boost to the strategic development of AI technology and capabilities inside Lloyds Banking Group,” said Boteju. “Rohit will work across the business to further integrate AI outcomes into business priorities and help us consistently scale AI and execute on our strategy.”
The bank said Dhawan will likely be tasked with overseeing the mixing of AI into customer and operational processes, in addition to making a recent data and AI function inside the bank.
He may also oversee an “AI Center of Excellence” consisting of experts in data science, behavioral science, machine learning and AI ethics, the bank said.
“It is a privilege to hitch Lloyds Banking Group and I look ahead to working for a business undergoing certainly one of the largest transformations in financial services and exploring how we will transform the way in which we use data and technology to reply to changing customer needs,” said Dhawan.
The bank has been implementing a strategic plan for greater than two years that features reviewing hundreds of middle management positions to digitize its operations and improve revenue.
Lloyds said it had hired 1,500 technology and data specialists this yr and was testing 50 artificial intelligence use cases to offer faster customer support, improve its chatbots and detect early warning signs of fraud.
The group said it uses machine learning algorithms to prioritize and kind customer calls and confirm income when customers take out mortgages, cutting the method from three weeks to a matter of seconds.
Lloyds, which also has an insurance and pensions division, also used AI to capture insurance claims following the storms in January, giving customers time to make urgent phone calls.
