Bank of Singapore deploys AI to automate KYC process

Bank of Singapore has launched an agentic artificial intelligence (AI) tool to streamline the process of verifying the legitimacy of clients’ wealth, a key step in Know-Your-Customer (KYC) due diligence. 
 
The bank said the AI tool - Source of Wealth Assistant (SOWA) marks a major leap in automating regulatory compliance, reducing reporting time from 10 days to just one hour. 
 
SOWA is designed to help relationship managers swiftly generate comprehensive and standardised SoW reports. These reports are critical in understanding a client’s background, including their career history, investment activities, and business ventures - a process that traditionally involved manually reviewing hundreds of pages of financial documents such as tax notices, payslips, property valuations and corporate filings. 
 
Kam Chin Wong, Global Head of Financial Crime Compliance at Bank of Singapore, said, “With AI integrated into the source of wealth reporting process, relationship managers can shift their focus from manual documentation to meaningful client engagement and risk assessment."  
 
He added that Agentic AI pushes the envelope further by enhancing efficiency, accuracy and consistency in decision-making.  
 
Unlike traditional or generative AI, agentic AI represents a new generation of intelligent systems capable of proactive autonomy. Co-developed with OCBC, Bank of Singapore’s parent company - SOWA can initiate tasks, assess data against internal benchmarks, and learn dynamically from previous interactions to improve performance over time. It also cross-references OCBC’s extensive internal database to validate client information using market-based salary and revenue indicators. 
 
SOWA’s implementation addresses a critical industry-wide challenge. Account opening efficiency has long been hindered by inconsistencies in SoW documentation due to the varying experience levels of relationship managers. The automation is set to ensure a higher level of report accuracy, minimising human errors such as missing or conflicting information. 
 
“Instead of spending days sifting through emails and documents, looking for the relevant information before writing the source of wealth report, all I need to do now is verify the uploaded details and refine the writeup generated by SOWA,” said Ruth Yeo, a Relationship Manager at Bank of Singapore.  
 
SOWA is said to maintain a strong security posture, with all information processed within the bank’s private cloud environment, ensuring confidentiality and compliance with data protection regulations. This new launch comes as part of a broader push by OCBC to embed AI across its operations.