Lloyds Bank is to use AI technology from Cleareye to eliminate the manual drudgery of paper processing and compliance checking for trade finance documentation.

Set for deployment this month, the technology will use optical character recognition machine learning, and natural language processing algorithms to extract critical information from a range of trade finance documents, including digital and paper-based import and export documentary letters of credit, documentary collections, undertakings and trade loans.

The system will also automate compliance and money laundering checks in line with International Chamber of Commerce Rules for Documentary Credits and Collections.

“We’re continually looking for ways to help our clients trade simpler, faster and more efficiently and our partnership with Cleareye.ai enables us to deliver this,” says Rogier van Lammeren, head of trade and working capital products at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking. “Using their AI technology, we will streamline critical parts of trade finance processes that we know are important to our clients.”

Lloyds bank last month signalled its intent to beef up the strategic development of AI technology and capabilities by hiring Rohit Dahwan from Amazon Web Services as its first director of artificial intelligence and analytics.

The UK lender is the latest Tier 1 bank to implement Cleareye’s technology, following in the footsteps of JPMorgan, which undertook a global roll out of the technology in 2022. This was followed last year by a strategic investment in the vendor.