Sync NI speaks to Danske Bank’s Chief Information Officer Liam Curran about how the bank is developing and deploying technology and what advances in AI mean for its staff and customers.
As Chief Information Officer you lead Danske Bank’s Technology & Digital Development department. Tell us a bit about what the team’s role is.
First and foremost, Danske Bank is a relationship bank, and that hasn’t changed. But banking is a fast-moving, competitive industry with changing customer behaviours and expectations in terms of speed, and our investment in the team reflects that. We now employ over 140 people here in Belfast in a variety of roles across digital development, data and analytics, software engineering, robotics, Project Management, AI, IT and cyber security. We’re continuing to build our capabilities, complementing a wealth of skills and experiencein the team with some recent senior hires in specialist roles such as a Head of Engineering, Head of Automation and a Head of AI. We have also provided retraining and opportunities for colleagues across the bank via our in-house Technology Academy and apprenticeship programmes where colleagues get the opportunity to combine real life experience and gain a degree level qualification.
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What difference does your work make to your customers?
If you look at different journeys a customer will have with the bank, whether it'screating an account, taking out a personal or business loan, getting an overdraft – a lot of that can be digital. A big focus for the team is making that customer journey as quick, seamless and convenient as possible so customers can do these things themselves, in their own time. And byautomatingmore and moreinternal processes, we’refreeing up time for our colleagues to spend on the things that add more value to our customers.
How is Danske Bank using AI?
AI is already changing how we live and work, and the potential to transform the economy is enormous. AI itself isn’t new of course, and in bankingwe’vebeen using it to help detect fraud and as part of our anti-money laundering measures for years. What’s changed is the arrival of GenAI. We’ve spent a lot of time across our business experimenting with use cases as we upskill ourselves on the new technologies. We’ve made great strides already in terms ofboth individual adoption and designing new solutions.
Can you tell us more about how your employees are using GenAI?
Danske Bank Group has developed its own GenAI assistant for everyday tasks,DanskeGPT. It’ssimilar to ChatGPT but provided in a secure and compliant way for our business. We think of it as a co-pilot or assistant to help colleagues with their daily work and many colleagues have become very proficient at using it, for example to automate tasks or generate ideas. As of July this year over three-quarters of our employees had used it, supported by a huge amount of education and upskilling. It genuinely seems to be helping them with their daily work, whether it’s helping with research, with meeting preparation, summarising documents or troubleshooting Excel formulas.Importantly, we have very clear guidelines and mandatory training for all employees on the use of GenAI.
You mentioned creating new solutions - can you share any examples?
Yes, so another key area has been leveraging our GenAI platform to create a number ofsmart agents. A good example of this is HR Polly, a GenAI-powered assistant for colleagues. Developed alongside our local HR department and Group colleagues, HR Polly is now the first point of contact for all HR policy and guideline related queries, making it quicker and easier to find information. And there are similar search assistants for IT related queries, governance documents and others, with more in the pipeline.
How will you judge the success of new technology at Danske?
Customers are at the heart of our business so ultimately success for usis about how satisfied our customers are, and that we’re continuing to attract and retain new customers. My team has a key role to play, whether its harnessing data to better understand and communicate with our customers, developing new digital functionality that make everyday banking easier, or reducing colleagues’ admin time so they have more time to spend on customers and new ideas.
Sowhat’s next in terms of the strategic opportunity for Danske Bank?
We are at a key turning point as the technology is quickly evolving from GenAI smart assistants to Agentic Agents that can perform more complex tasks. No one has really cracked Agentic AI yet at Enterprise level, albeit we are seeing more automation of individual tasks. Locallywe’ve been working onAgentic for six months and it may be another six months before we put anything into production. That’s because we want these AI Agents to perform complex tasks across multiple customer journeys, so it is very important that we go through rigorous governance and testing. We’re at early stages with Agentic, but the potential could be incredible. We’re collaborating with our colleagues in Group and with partners such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft on proof-of-concept projects - they have told us that we are at the forefront of these developments, so that is very exciting.
How important are partners like AWS in achieving your ambitions?
Partnerships, collaboration, and knowledge-sharingare all key to unlocking the potential of GenAI, not just in our own business but in society and the economy. We work with a number of tech partners and engage with local organisations including our local universities, Catalyst NI, NI Cyber and Belfast Chamber, to help drive innovation. We have recently partnered with AICON to launch anew series of After-Hours networkingevents aimed atbuilding stronger community connections and sparkingadditional opportunities for collaboration. We believe GenAI can be a powerful enabler and are excited about the opportunities it will create for our business and beyond.
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