We have invested heavily in building in-house capabilities and solutions to industrialise AI/ML: Ramesh Mallya, CTO, DBS Bank India

In an exclusive interaction with Express Computer, Ramesh Mallya, Chief Technology Officer, DBS Bank India, discusses the bank’s decade-long digital transformation journey, focusing on embedding customer-centricity into every aspect of banking. He highlights the bank’s use of AI/ML, cloud technology, and their in-house GenAI tool, DBS-GPT, to enhance customer experience and operational efficiency. Mallya also addresses the bank’s robust cybersecurity strategies, commitment to open banking, and future plans for expanding AI applications, forging strategic partnerships, and upskilling employees in emerging technologies.

Please talk about your digital transformation journey and the latest digital initiatives you’ve undertaken.

DBS embarked on its digital transformation journey a decade ago, driven by the objective of becoming deeply embedded in the customer journey and inculcating customer-centric thinking throughout the organisation. Our aim is to make banking highly personalised and seamlessly integrated into everyday life, reflecting our brand ethos of “Live More, Bank Less.” We are leveraging emerging technologies to reimagine the future of banking. This includes harnessing the power of AI/ML to deliver highly differentiated customer experiences. Further, our hybrid, multi-cloud infrastructure has given us greater resilience and scalability, while also reducing infrastructure costs and offering the flexibility to move between different computing models and service providers. Building upon our cloud capabilities, we have developed a suite of in-house solutions to further accelerate our cloud transformation. For instance, EvolvePavedCloud, our own in-house cloud solution, seamlessly blends the scalability of the public cloud with the security and control of on-premises solutions. We have also made significant investments in new technologies, including agile methodologies, microservices, cloud hosting, and DevOps practices.

What are the current tech trends in the banking industry, and how do you plan to capitalise on the same?

DBS is actively embracing emerging technologies such as GenAI and blockchain. We have developed DBS-GPT, our own secure, internal GenAI tool, to automate repetitive tasks and free up our employees to focus on more strategic and personalised customer interactions. This empowers our team to deliver a differentiated customer experience, providing tailored solutions and building deeper relationships. We are also excited about the potential of blockchain, as it can help reduce friction in transactions, improve trust, and ultimately deliver even greater value to our customers.

Given the rapid advancements in AI, how are you leveraging these technologies to enhance customer experience, risk management, and operational efficiency?

We have invested heavily in building in-house capabilities and solutions to industrialise AI/ML and ensure its responsible and ethical use. We have two powerful in-house solutions: ADA (Advancing DBS with AI) and ALAN, our AI protocol and knowledge repository. These solutions empower our teams to build and deploy AI models rapidly, accelerating operational improvements, enhancing decision-making, and delivering a new level of hyper-personalisation to our customers. Since its launch in 2019, ADA has fuelled over 200 data use cases, demonstrating its transformative impact across our operations. For example, we utilise AI to send customised nudges to customers each month, guiding them toward better investment and financial planning decisions.

Recognising the rapid advancements and ethical considerations surrounding AI, we have established a dedicated Responsible AI task force. This task force, comprising of senior leaders, rigorously assesses and addresses potential risks before any AI use case is deployed. Our existing responsible data use framework, known as PURE, provides a strong foundation for guiding our AI initiatives. PURE ensures that all our data uses are Purposeful, Unsurprising, Respectful, and Explainable for our customers.

With increasing cyber threats, what is your strategy to protect customer data and maintain system integrity? How does the bank balance innovation with security?

With increasing cyber threats, safeguarding customer data and maintaining system integrity are top priorities for us. Our Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) oversees our cybersecurity efforts, managing cyber risks, data protection, and compliance with relevant regulations. We invest in robust technologies such as firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and anti-malware software. Our security analysts monitor systems around the clock, using advanced analytics to detect and investigate potential threats.

We perform regular assessments to ensure our controls are effective and resilient against emerging threats. This helps us validate our control framework and adapt to new risks. In case of a security incident, we have a detailed response plan to quickly contain the threat, minimise impact, and restore normal operations. We raise awareness around cybersecurity through extensive training and educational resources that allow our employees to recognise and respond to these risks effectively.

How is DBS positioning itself in the open banking ecosystem? What opportunities and challenges do you foresee in this space?

We are actively developing and implementing open application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable seamless integration with third-party applications and services. This allows customers to incorporate our banking services into their own systems or platforms, creating a truly digital workflow. From customer onboarding to deposits, loans, channel preferences, bill payments, and funds transfers, our APIs offer developers a powerful toolkit to seamlessly integrate banking functionalities into their applications and platforms.

Further, customers can digitise their operations and achieve greater workflow efficiencies through real-time account information feeds, streamlined transactions, and Straight-Through Processing (STP) capabilities. Real-time transactions also eliminate the need for batch processing, significantly speeding up operations and enhancing overall efficiency.

To foster innovation and accelerate development, we provide a secure API sandbox environment. This empowers developers to experiment freely and test new features. Our vision is to build a more interconnected and collaborative financial ecosystem, where customers have greater control and access to a broader range of services. By leveraging open banking, we can offer innovative, customer-centric products and services. However, this also requires robust data security and privacy measures, along with transparent data-sharing policies, to ensure customer trust.

What is your roadmap for the next 6-12 months?

Our focus is on delivering a compelling suite of new and enhanced products and services. We are actively building strategic partnerships with key players across different ecosystems to create a more seamless and interconnected experience for our customers. Alongside these initiatives, we are strengthening our risk management processes and cybersecurity defences, ensuring our systems remain secure and resilient.

Our DataFirst team is actively developing innovative use cases for AI and machine learning, from optimising internal processes through hyper automation to delivering personalised insights to our banking customers.

We are also investing in upskilling our employees in critical areas like cloud computing, AI and machine learning, cybersecurity, data science, and agile development. By equipping our people with the latest skills, we ensure that we continue to deliver solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers.