Lloyds Bank uses artificial intelligence to check trade finance documents

Lloyds Bank is streamlining its trade financing sales through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), which will automate the checking of documents in line with industry regulations.

Trade finance transactions involve large payments, often international, that traditionally require many participants with large volumes of manual checks of documentation required.

Trade financing includes the tools, techniques and instruments that facilitate trade, and protect buyers and sellers from risks.

Through AI specialist Cleareye.ai, Lloyds will use optical character recognition, machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to extract critical information from paper-based and digital documents.

Rogier van Lammeren, head of trade and working capital products at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said the company wants to make trading simpler, faster and more efficient. “Using their AI technology, we will streamline critical parts of trade finance processes that we know are important to our clients,” he added.

The technology examines documents in line with the International Chamber of Commerce rules, as well as checks for potential money laundering activity.

The deal with Cleareye.ai is also another example of a large bank working with small tech startups on major projects involving the latest technologies. Since fintech became a more regularly used term, banks have been increasingly working with smaller IT suppliers rather than developing in-house or working with global tech giants.

Lloyds is investing in digital technology in its trade financing business, and in February 2024, it enabled a fully digital documentary collection for trade finance, using electronic Bills of Lading and digital Promissory Notes. This reduced the time to complete the transaction from 15 days to 24 hours, as well as costs.

In 2023, it began transacting under the UK’s Electronic Trade Documents Act.

The finance sector could lead the way in using artificial intelligence to transform business during a period of investment in the technology across many sectors.

Last year, a study of nearly 5,000 senior executives across the globe, part of Accenture’s technology vision report, When atoms meet bits: The foundations of our new reality, revealed that 96% believe the convergence of the digital and physical world – which Accenture describes as the coming together of atoms and bits – will transform business in the next 10 years.