SBI moving entire cheque processing to AI, aims to free up workforce for higher-value roles: Chairman CS Setty

Mumbai, Aug 7 (IANS) State Bank of India (SBI) is accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence across its operations, with the country’s largest lender planning to shift its entire cheque processing system to AI in a move aimed at improving efficiency and reducing manual intervention.

Speaking at a press briefing after the bank’s quarterly earnings, SBI Chairman CS Setty said the lender is extensively deploying AI in critical back-office functions such as fraud prevention, proactive risk management, anti-money laundering (AML), and cheque processing.

“We will be using AI extensively in fraud prevention, proactive risk management and anti-money laundering. These are all high-volume activities in the back office,” Setty said while addressing a question by IANS.

Highlighting one of the bank’s earliest AI initiatives, he said SBI’s entire cheque processing operation is being transitioned to AI.

“Our total cheque processing is moving to AI. It releases a lot of workforce which is currently employed in manually doing it. This is another back-office operation we are deploying. Operational improvement is our focus,” he said.

Setty indicated that AI will primarily automate repetitive, high-volume and rule-based processes rather than customer-facing roles.

The technology is expected to reduce manual workloads in operational functions while enabling employees to focus on higher-value activities requiring human judgment and customer engagement.

“And you release lot of workforce which is employed currently manually doing it. So this is another back office operation we are deploying. So operational improvement is our focus,” he stated.

For customers, the wider adoption of AI is expected to result in faster processing of banking services, improved fraud detection, quicker transaction monitoring and more efficient handling of routine banking operations, although the bank did not indicate any major changes to branch services or customer interaction channels over the next few years.

On the bank’s subsidiaries, Setty ruled out any immediate plans for stake dilution or fresh listings beyond existing entities.

“There is no dilution in SBI Funds as of now, and for other subsidiaries we don’t have any plans,” he said while responding to IANS question.

–IANS

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