Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Limited (Krungsri), one of Thailand's top five banks, has entered into a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) with a focus on enhancing the customer experience, improving financial inclusion and operational efficiencies.

The use of services provided by AWS, an Amazon.com firm, is expected to boost the innovative culture of the firm, enabling three group entities - Bank of Ayudhya, Ayudhya Capital Services, and Krungsri Auto - to effectively harness data analytics, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).

This collaboration with AWS will allow Krungsri to deliver personalised services and tailor-made offers 60% more efficiently. The associated cost savings will be invested back into the development of innovative new products.

Krungsri's auto loans, credit cards, and asset management departments, which used to work in silos, making a holistic view of individual customers' needs challenging, will now benefit from a well-integrated AWS system.

As part of this bid to enhance digital services, Krungsri will now utilise the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud, scaling workloads on-demand.

Furthermore, Krungsri has implemented a self-service business intelligence (BI) solution using Tableau, hosted on Amazon EC2, which grants the Krungsri workforce easy access to data analytics and visualisation tools, supporting informed decision-making at all organisational levels.

To foster a comprehensive understanding of its customers, Krungsri has implemented a detailed data platform on AWS. Using the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), a cloud object storage service, data from the bank's individual customer base of 9.8 million, along with account information and transactions from the bank's departments, are stored securely and compliantly. AWS data analytics services assist Krungsri's efforts to develop new digital services.

Krungsri's adoption of the cloud data platform also helps the bank to harness ML to enhance the customer experience. Leveraging Amazon SageMaker, a comprehensive service to fabricate, train, and deploy ML models, Krungsri optimises delivery routes for vehicles transporting cash to over 6,000 ATMs across Thailand.

Thus, using ML to predict traffic and cash demand at various locations, Krungsri makes significant savings on fuel costs and transportation time, improving cash availability for customers.

In Thailand, approximately 7.5% of the adult population is either unbanked or underbanked, implying they lack easy access to banking services and may not be aware that services are available to assist them. However, through the use of AWS's AI and ML capabilities, Krungsri can swiftly assess loan risks for customers who do not own property or cannot provide financial documentation.

"Our digital transformation into an AI-driven bank with AWS is helping us serve our growing base of digitally savvy customers while also helping our underserved communities build financial resilience," said Tul Roteseree, head of Data and Analytics Division at Bank of Ayudhya PCL.

"Lenders in Thailand are digitally transforming to better serve a broader base of new customers using cloud and AI technologies. With AWS's generative AI and machine learning capabilities at the forefront, Krungsri can make faster business decisions, offer more compelling services for its Thai customers, and help the unbanked become more financially secure and included," said Vatsun Thirapatarapong, country manager at AWS Thailand.