APAC banks feel left behind by Western peers in AI: survey

Two in five believe that lack of available talent is holding them back.

Majority of APAC banks are feeling unrest as 91% of them think that they lag behind their counterparts in the US and Europe in terms of AI implementation, a study by analytic software firm FICO found.

Meanwhile, the remaining 9% believe that they are at least on the same track with their counterpats in the US and Europe in terms of AI adoption in their operations.

Two in five of the said APAC banks think that it was the lack of available talent that hindered them the most to adopt AI and machine learning into their operations. “The shortage of talent continues to be an issue worldwide as the use of AI continues to grow quickly,” Dan McConaghy, president of FICO in Asia Pacific said in a statement.

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Other banks stated that it was the use of legacy systems (28%), as well as costs (28%) that hampered them in adopting the said technologies.

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Despite most of the banks admitting that they are lagging behind AI adoption, more than half of the respondents believe that AI and machine learning could help improve operational efficiency especially in credit decisions (68%), followed by fraud detection (45%), and collections (35%).