HSBC partners with Mistral to fuel bank-wide generative AI adoption

HSBC has announced a multi-year partnership with French start-up Mistral AI designed to turbocharge the use of generative AI within the banking giant’s business.

The strategic deal will cover a wide range of use cases but, ultimately, aims to boost employee productivity through efficiency gains, enhance business processes, and transform the customer experience for HSBC’s millions of customers around the world.

HSBC will benefit from access to Mistral AI’s commercial models – both existing and yet-to-be-developed – and see teams from both sides work together in collaboration for the betterment of generative AI use cases in action.

HSBC said it is “continually assessing a wide range of large language models (LLMs) as part of its technology strategy.” It added that it saw an opportunity with the Mistral AI partnership to leverage the latter’s expertise to add value to existing internal tools. This includes an HSBC AI-powered platform that enables employees to be more productive in many ways, including:

• Aiding the analysis of complex or document-heavy processes, such as financing or lending.
• Faster development cycles, so the time to move from prototype, validation, and launch is accelerated.
• Supporting multiple tasks business-wide, such as helping client-facing teams create and deliver tailored comms at speed, facilitating the launch of hyper-personalized marketing campaigns, and identifying both risks and savings potential for the procurement teams.
• Translation services that assist with customer interactions across multiple languages.

Its latest ambitions will be made possible thanks to the combination of HSBC’s global financial expertise, coupled with the power of Mistral AI’s cutting-edge technology, the firm said in a blog post where it referred to its new partner as “an AI powerhouse.”

“Working with Mistral is an exciting step forward in HSBC’s technology strategy, enabling us to further enhance AI capabilities across the bank,” said Georges Elhedery, HSBC’s group CEO.

“The partnership will equip our colleagues with tools to help them innovate, simplify daily tasks, and free up time to deliver for our customers.”

Both firms were also keen to stress they are committed to responsibly using AI. As such, all work carried out as part of the partnership will be done so in accordance with the highest standards of AI data privacy, technology development, and transparency.

“We are proud to engage in this long-term partnership with HSBC. Our highly customisable, enterprise-grade frontier AI solutions will reinvent HSBC’s workflows and services while ensuring full ownership of data,” said Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI’s co-founder and CEO.

“Together, we will provide HSBC’s employees with high-end, AI-powered productivity tools and a new generation of banking services for millions of customers worldwide.”

AI focus is not a recent addition for HSBC. Indeed, the company has been working on machine learning and AI-related activities for around a decade, with more than 600 use cases already in operation.

Furthermore, more than 20,000 of its developers are embracing coding assistance, making coding efforts 15% more efficient.

The company now wants to build on these solid foundations, doing so at pace and scale. Examples of future focus areas include credit and lending process improvements, customer onboarding enhancements, and innovations that aid anti-money laundering checks and help fight fraud.

"Whilst some overestimate AI’s short-term impact, I believe many significantly underestimate its long-term potential,” said Stuart Riley, HSBC’s group CIO, on the firm’s web page detailing its AI strategy.

“At HSBC, we’re investing in foundational AI capabilities alongside our ongoing projects, which will enable us to accelerate and expand AI utilisation across the bank.

“These foundations are crucial as they allow for rapid AI deployment whilst maintaining the necessary safeguards for responsible usage. I anticipate that within the near future, every employee will be using AI in their daily activities.”