Finance

For financial institutions, generative AI integration starts now

Published

1 year ago

November 1, 2024

For financial institutions, generative AI integration starts now

As published in BankingExchange.com

Today, banks of all sizes have access to a considerable amount of customer data that’s processed and stored on a daily basis, from credit history to buying activity. While industry innovators have always used this data to optimize services and enhance customer experiences, the emerging technology landscape presents new opportunities to take these data resources to new heights, particularly in the realm of generative AI (GenAI).

Today, more than 50% of tech leaders within the financial services industry are interested in exploring AI applications, signaling a trend of increased adoption of this technology. Although many use cases may focus on customer experience applications, operational improvement is also an area of high value. In this environment, bank risk and compliance professionals have a unique opportunity to incorporate meaningful, measured GenAI capabilities into their workflows to help them manage risk, maintain compliance, and safely grow their business.

Increasing GenAI use cases

Every risk or compliance professional can relate to poring over hundreds of pages of regulatory documents to not only identify new laws and regulatory obligations to which they are subject, but to help provide insights on how those developments impact their front-line business partners and broader business operations.

As large language models (LLMs) continue to advance, GenAI is emerging as a key tool in helping bank compliance professionals stay more current on the regulatory landscape, and ultimately optimize their risk and compliance programs. This capability stems from GenAI’s power to generate profound insights from new information and even recommend next steps based on historical actions. With nearly 70% of financial leaders denoting technology investment as a crucial step towards managing new regulatory developments, GenAI provides an immediate use case in helping professionals not only identify business obligations from new or existing regulations, but to communicate the impact of changes to frontline business leaders.

Across industries, staffing shortages force companies to “do more with less,” leveraging their limited resources for maximum efficiency. Financial institutions are certainly not excluded from this struggle, and resource constraints may be even more pressing as some of the largest banks strive to process millions of transactions each day. GenAI’s power to process information and aid decision-making presents an immediate opportunity to automate many of the manual tasks comprising employee workloads. From helping evaluate the impact of a new regulation on risk ratings to identifying vulnerabilities and suggesting controls to safeguard banking operations, GenAI, if successfully implemented, can augment human decision-making, allowing employees to deliver higher-value work.

Lastly, GenAI may complement human insights when challenges abound. While the human brain is excellent at reacting to immediate information and making decisions, GenAI can take a bird’s-eye view of an entire information landscape to surface insights hidden to the naked eye. This capability is useful for pairing customer caches with historical trend data to inform risk assessments or flag anomalous transactions indicative of potential fraud.

Say hello to the AI steward

GenAI’s potential to help compliance professions see around blind spots and better anticipate and avoid risk is promising. However, after the initial enthusiasm subsides, a daunting implementation journey remains, with no clear path to integration. At this stage, many chief compliance officers may become anxious about navigating GenAI integration complexities, but therein lies a silver lining: one needn’t embark on this journey alone.

This exploratory phase represents the best time for chief compliance and risk officers to assemble a team of “AI stewards.” These professionals, drawn from all areas of the business, will be instrumental in crafting a GenAI implementation strategy and providing insight into which business processes would benefit from GenAI’s automative and predictive capabilities. This early stage is also an optimal time to involve legal, client relations, and even HR to better understand the ethical and legal considerations of both internal and external GenAI integration, especially as privacy and data stewardship come to the forefront.

While tech and IT leaders may have the most hands-on role in a bank’s GenAI rollout, incorporating team members from across business functions is equally important— it may come as a surprise as to where your “AI allies” are hiding!

Assessing risks and devising best practices

No technological integration is worth exposing a bank’s sensitive information to potential hackers or leaving data open to compromise, and GenAI integration is no exception. However, by employing the latest guidance, risk and compliance professionals can support a secure rollout.

While federal guidance like last year’s landmark Executive Order on AI safety and security is a valuable starting point for general risk evaluation, the breakneck speed of AI innovation requires stakeholders to get ahead of federal regulation to remain competitive.

State-level legislation coming out of Colorado and California may provide more comprehensive guidance, especially as these states deploy GenAI tools for public services. Across the pond, European regulations such as the AI Act are years ahead of early US frameworks and may serve as a helpful guide.

It must be noted that big data resources—which make large banks especially excellent GenAI integration candidates—remain the central reason why careful guidance is needed: AI models can exert a significant impact on the millions of customers served by these institutions every day. For example, GenAI models trained on biased data sets are particularly problematic for financial institutions, as functions like credit scoring or underwriting can easily be influenced by underlying prejudices embedded in the model.

Moreover, as AI-generated content becomes even more conversational and widespread, the importance of early disclosure of how GenAI may influence their products and services is paramount. Risk and compliance professionals should consult their company’s legal team to ensure these disclosures are made at the earliest possible stage.

Conclusion

In this age of digital disruption, banks must move fast to keep up with evolving industry demands. Generative AI is quickly emerging as a strategic tool to carve out a competitive niche. With unique insight into a bank’s most resource-heavy functions, risk and compliance professionals have a valuable role in identifying the best areas for GenAI automation.

Kris Stewart, JD, CRCM, is a senior director in the compliance product management team at Wolters Kluwer. Reach her at LinkedIn.

Finance

Inheritance warning as Aussie kids face $320,000 tax hit: ‘Completely gone’

Published

10 hours ago

February 2, 2026

Press Room

Inheritance warning as Aussie kids face 0,000 tax hit: ‘Completely gone’

If you inherit your mum or dad’s super fund, you can pay tax of up to 32 per cent. (Source: Getty)

Australians risk losing a huge amount in superannuation inheritance due to little-known tax rules. Older generations will transfer trillions of dollars in wealth to younger generations in the coming decades, with much of this money to come via superannuation and property assets.

Most families don’t realise that their kids could lose a third of their inheritance to superannuation tax. But Pivot Wealth financial adviser and Yahoo Finance contributor Ben Nash said this tax could be “completely avoidable” with a bit of strategy.

When someone passes away, their superannuation is split into two main parts: the tax-free component and the taxable component.

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If the money goes to adult kids or anyone who is not financially dependent on the person passing down the super, the taxable portion gets hit with a “death tax” of up to 32 per cent.

“On a $1 million balance, that means $320,000 that can be completely gone,” Nash explained.

The biggest component of most people’s super funds is the taxable component because it’s made up of any compulsory employment super contributions, salary sacrifice or tax-deductible contributions, and the growth and earnings on these funds.

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The good news is it is possible to reduce or avoid the tax altogether.

“The fix here is what’s called a withdrawal and recontribution strategy. It’s a pretty simple concept, although the rules are a little bit complicated,” Nash explained.

“Basically, while your parents are still alive and eligible, they can withdraw some or all of their super, pay no tax on the withdrawal, and then put it back into their super as a non-concessional or after-tax contribution.

“That shifts their super balance from taxable to completely tax-free. When you do that gradually over time, you can save literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in future tax.”

Your parents would need to be over the age of 60 and meet a condition of release (like retirement) so they can withdraw part of their super tax-free.

The rules around withdrawing and contributing to your super fund, along with how much you put in, are complicated, so it is important to get financial advice from a professional.

The Productivity Commission previously estimated that $3.5 trillion would be passed on from Aussies aged 60 and over by 2050. More recent JBWere figures put the figure at $5.4 trillion over the next 20 years.

Finance

Trending tickers: Oracle, Disney, BYD, AstraZeneca and Endeavour Mining

Published

22 hours ago

February 2, 2026

Press Room

Trending tickers: Oracle, Disney, BYD, AstraZeneca and Endeavour Mining

Tech company Oracle (ORCL) said on Sunday that it planned to raise $45bn (£32.8bn) to $50bn in 2026 to fund the expansion of its cloud infrastructure business.

The company said that it planned to achieve this funding target using a combination of debt and equity financing.

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“Oracle is raising money in order to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from our largest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers, including AMD (AMD), Meta (META), Nvidia (NVDA), OpenAI, TikTok, xAI and others,” it said in a statement, according to a Reuters report.

Oracle (ORCL) shares hovered just below the flatline in pre-market trading on Monday morning and are trading 3.4% in the red over one year.

Media and entertainment giant Disney (DIS) was in focus on Monday morning, following a Bloomberg report that it was close to picking theme-park division chairman Josh D’Amaro as the company’s next CEO.

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According to the Bloomberg report, Disney’s (DIS) board is aligning on promoting D’Amaro into the role and will vote on naming a new CEO in the coming week, citing people familiar with the matter. D’Amaro would take over from Bob Iger, who returned as CEO in 2022, having served in the role from 2005 to 2020.

Disney (DIS) had not responded to Yahoo Finance UK’s request for comment at the time of writing.

The company is set to report its fiscal first quarter earnings later in the day on Monday. Disney (DIS) shares hovered just below the flatline in pre-market trading on Monday morning and are 0.6% in the red over one year.

In Asia, shares in Hong Kong-listed electric vehicle (EV) company BYD slid 7.3% on Monday, after reporting a drop in sales in January.

BYD (1211.HK) said on Sunday that it had sold 210,051 vehicles in January, which was 30.1% lower than 300,538 it sold in the same period last year.

The company sold 83,249 battery electric vehicles last month, which was 33.6% lower than January last year and it delivered 122,269 plug-in hybrid EVs, down 28.5%.

Pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca (AZN.L) will begin trading its ordinary shares on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday for the first time.

AstraZeneca (AZN.L), which is listed on the UK’s FTSE 100 (^FTSE) and Sweden’s OMX Stockholm 30 (^OMX), previously had American depositary shares (ADS) listed on the Nasdaq (^IXIC).

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Finance

Oracle announces Equity and Debt Financing Plan for Calendar Year 2026

Published

1 day ago

February 1, 2026

Press Room

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) today announced its full calendar year 2026 plan to fund the expansion of its rapidly growing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business. Oracle is raising money in order to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from our largest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers, including AMD, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, TikTok, xAI and others.

Oracle expects to raise $45 to $50 billion of gross cash proceeds during the 2026 calendar year. The company plans to achieve its funding objective by using a balanced combination of debt and equity financing to maintain a solid investment-grade balance sheet.

On the equity side, Oracle plans to raise approximately half of its 2026 funding through a combination of equity-linked and common equity issuances. This is expected to include an initial issuance of mandatory convertible preferred securities, representing a modest portion of the overall equity funding, as well as a newly authorized at-the-market equity program of up to $20 billion. The company plans to issue equity from the at-the-market program flexibly over time at prevailing market prices, based on market conditions and capital needs.

On the debt side, Oracle intends to complete a single, one-time issuance of investment-grade senior unsecured bonds early in 2026 to cover the other half of the company’s planned funding for the year. Oracle does not expect to issue additional bonds during calendar year 2026 beyond this transaction.

This funding plan reflects Oracle’s commitment to maintaining an investment-grade rating, prudent capital allocation, balance sheet strength, and transparency with investors as the company continues to expand its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business. These transactions have been approved by the Oracle Board of Directors.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC will be leading the senior unsecured bond offering, and Citigroup will be leading the at-the-market issuance and mandatory convertible preferred equity offering.

About Oracle
Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud.

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Oracle, Java, MySQL, and NetSuite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. NetSuite was the first cloud company—ushering in the new era of cloud computing.

“Safe Harbor” Statement: This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding Oracle’s expected funding needs, anticipated credit ratings, capital markets transactions, and financing strategy. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied due to various risks and uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ are: changes in the timing of any customer’s purchases or ability to fund its commitments; delays or development and/or operational problems with the construction of implementation of any of the data centers; and new or different commercial opportunities that cause the Company to reevaluate its near-term capital needs. Oracle undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Oracle Corporation may file a registration statement (including a prospectus) with the SEC for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration statement and other documents Oracle Corporation has filed with the SEC for more complete information about Oracle Corporation and this offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, you may obtain a copy by visiting www.oracle.com/investor, calling our Investor Relations Department at 1-650-506-4073, writing to Investor Relations Department, Oracle Corporation, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood City, California 94065 or sending an email to [email protected].

SOURCE Oracle