CaixaBank : Artificial intelligence used for foreign trade

CaixaBank and IBM are implanting IBM Watson, the first cognitive application in Spanish that will improve the bank's business customer consultancy services in the foreign trade area.

CaixaBank and IBM (NYSE: IBM) have successfully implanted the first development in Spanish based on the IBM Watson cognitive computing system. This technological solution will allow the bank to strengthen business customer consultancy in the foreign trade area.

The project represents a technological milestone in the financial sector, as it is the first application of IBM Watson cognitive computing promoted by a bank in Spain.

Marta Martínez (IBM) y Gonzalo Gortázar (CaixaBank) en IBM BusinessConnect 2016

The CaixaBank team of foreign trade specialists has trained IBM Watson so that the system can answer questions and technical queries related to the business area. In this way, IBM Watson complements services offered by CaixaBank to mentor businesses' international expansion that also includes 85 specialist advisers and a network of 23 operative branches and representative offices that offer cover in 56 countries and process operations in 127 countries.

Foreign trade consultancy application

At CaixaBank, IBM Watson will help specialist foreign trade advisers so that they can access a large quantity of specialised information quickly and thereby clear up customer queries immediately. The solution is particularly suitable for the foreign trade business area, for which an enormous corpus of trade standards is available including specific regulations for countries, internal standards, etc.

This project is the culmination of work by CaixaBank and IBM to teach IBM Watson to understand Spanish. CaixaBank, engineers from IBM Spain and researchers from IBM Research R&D&I labs in Ireland and the United States have worked together to transform both the algorithms and the internal components of the IBM Watson natural language recognition engine and the learning algorithms (machine learning) that make up the basis of the cognitive system and allow it to learn from interactions with users.

In addition, IBM Watson has been trained by CaixaBank business experts so that it can learn the specialist terminology and respond appropriately to CaixaBank's specific needs. What's more, the work has been supported by the Digital Transformation Lab - IBM Studio to improve user experience and make interaction easier.

'CaixaBank has always been a pioneering bank in using the most modern technology to provide customers with services and move our quality level up a notch,' stated Juan Alcaraz, CaixaBank Managing Director, who adds: 'On this occasion, applying cognitive computing through IBM Watson has allowed us to strengthen the consultancy that we offer our business customers, whilst helping advisers focus on customer service, giving them advanced immediate response tools.'.

'IBM Watson continues transforming how we work and live. Its capacity to help humans become more efficient in intellectual tasks that require knowledge and analysis of a large volume of complex data will mean - and already means - blazing a trail in the field of information technologies. Once again, CaixaBank is pioneering applying disruptive technology in the banking field. IBM are proud that CaixaBank is the first entity in the world to implant this type of system in Spanish.' stated Alfred Escala, Vice President of industries and business development for IBM Spain, Portugal, Greece and Israel.

IBM Watson and cognitive computing

IBM Watson is a cognitive technology pioneer that has opened up a new era in computing. IBM Watson is not programmed like current computers. It understands a person's natural language, it is capable of answering complex questions working from its powerful capacity to analyse large volumes of structured (in databases) and non structured data (in books, blogs, social media, press articles, videos, pictures, etc.) and it also learns from experience. Designed to collaborate, interact and extend the intellectual capacity of people, IBM Watson is capable of processing information more like a human than a machine.

The public first became aware of the IBM Watson system in January 2011 when it appeared on the TV game show Jeopardy! beating the two best contestants in the history of this show, demonstrating it was capable of answering questions formulated in natural language. IBM Watson has evolved considerably since then, expanding its capabilities and it can be accessed from the cloud.

The aim of cognitive computing is to help people make better decisions, founded on information analysis and big data. In this way, IBM Watson is being used as a consultant and support for professionals. For example, in sectors such as health, it might help doctors personalise treatments; in finance, it can support customer consultancy tasks for financial professionals; or in education, guide students on possible educational paths, future jobs, etc.