AI-enabled ECM can simplify compliance for APAC financial institutions – Digital Transformation – Finance #IndustryFinance

Financial institutions across the APAC region are facing challenges stemming from diverse regulations related to data privacy, anti-money laundering (AML), counter-terrorism financing (CTF), and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements.

The region’s regulatory landscape varies between countries, complicating efforts to maintain compliance. Institutions deal with fragmented content spread across multiple systems, making it difficult to manage unstructured data such as audio, video, and social media content.

“AI-enabled Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems help financial institutions address these challenges by automating processes, ensuring data governance, and improving operational efficiency,” said Pramod Kumar, head of business, APAC, Newgen Software, told iTnews Thing in an exclusive interview.

These systems have ready-made ECM extensions for existing IT infrastructure including core banking, core insurance, CRM, ERP systems, office productivity suite, processes, workflows, and communication tools, said Kumar.

This ensures enterprise content compliance and governance without altering day-to-day operations, he added.

For example, automated record creation and classification reduce the need for manual work, ensuring compliance with record filing.

AI features including automatic content classification, meta-data tagging, and natural language search make it easier to find and access documents, even in large datasets.

This is particularly important for financial institutions, said Kumar, which often struggle with fragmented content spread across multiple systems, leading to inconsistent governance and challenges in managing unstructured data including, audio, video, and social media.

Data can now be captured and managed centrally

According to Kumar, AI-enabled ECM systems overcome such problems as they help in records management, giving organisations centralised control over the information lifecycle.

It captures data from multiple sources, manages as per access policies, and ensures regular disposal in line with compliance guidelines, he added.

AI-enabled ECM systems also offer automated compliance monitoring, track regulatory changes across jurisdictions, classify and interpret updates, notify relevant stakeholders, and initiate workflows or case management while tracking closure.

AI-based analytics can look at transaction patterns and flag anomalies in real time, enhancing fraud detection and AML efforts.

“AI-driven content analytics automate content classification, ensuring the secure handling of sensitive data according to organisational policies. Besides this, AI-enabled ECM systems play a key role in improving the customer experience for financial institutions.”

– Pramod Kumar, head of business, APAC, Newgen Software

“Automated onboarding processes streamline KYC efforts, allowing institutions to deliver automated onboarding journeys for new customers.”

The ECM systems provide employees with instant access to customer documents and data, enabling efficient support.

According to Kumar, AI-driven content extraction from supporting documents ensures minimal data entry on self-service portals, allowing customers to access services with minimal effort, improving convenience and user satisfaction.

How will Gen AI impact cross-border data transfers and enable compliance?

Managing cross-border data transfers is a concern for financial institutions in the APAC region, given the varied regulatory requirements across countries.

Kumar said AI-enabled ECM systems address this challenge by using encryption and secure transfer protocols to protect data in transit.

Institutions can comply with local regulations through frameworks such as Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs).

To enhance security, he added that AI employs anonymisation and minimisation of sensitive information, with Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) limiting access to authorised users.

The rise of generative AI and machine learning is reshaping ECM systems, offering financial institutions opportunities to improve productivity, knowledge management, and compliance.

However, institutions must also address governance concerns related to AI, particularly around data privacy and security.

According to Kumar – ECM vendors are now developing on-premise language models (LLMs), enforcing access rights, and extending guardrails for the input and output of generative AI.

“There is a growing shift toward cloud and hybrid deployments, providing financial institutions greater flexibility, scalability, and agility. Monitoring and evaluating performance regularly will allow institutions to adjust and optimise systems as needed,” he said.