Intellect announces the launch of iColumbus.ai

By Joy Dumasia

Intellect Global Transaction Banking (iGTB) launched iColumbus.ai, named after the pioneer whose discoveries eventually opened the world to genuinely global international trade. iColumbus.ai is on a mission to disrupt how trade business is conducted today, helping banks differentiate themselves through digitalisation, enhance operational resilience and champion sustainability.

iColumbus.ai is an Artificial Intelligence powerhouse for trade finance, enabling the extraction, validation, remediation and enrichment of machine-readable data whilst radically reducing the time, cost and risk traditionally associated with manual compliance checks. The native AI engine, combined with advanced machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision techniques, can contextualise and process 500 different document types in 87% less time with complete accuracy.

Benefiting from around 25 years of experience in Trade Finance, starting with one of the world’s largest trade banks, iColumbus.ai is today:

• Powering 35+ banks across Europe, Middle East, Africa, India, Asia and Australia.
• A state-of-the-art technology platform that drives contextual and composable products for banks.
• SWIFT Certified for the latest industry messaging standards.
• A combined platform for trade and supply chain finance with associated limits management and risk distribution capabilities.
• Trade Finance covers 12 in-depth business functions with 53+ user journeys: Import letter of credit, Export letter of credit, Inward collections, Outward collections, Bankers acceptances, Reimbursements, Guarantees & Standbys, Bills discounted, Trade loans, Shipping Guarantees, Participations & Syndications and Islamic Finance.
• Supply Chain Finance covers 7 extensive business functions with 104+ user journeys: Payables finance, Receivables discounting, Pre-shipment finance, Dealer finance, Supplier onboarding, Dynamic discounting and Invoice/PO management.

The economic outlook is surprisingly positive, regulations demand new technology, digitalisation is top of the agenda, and sustainability is key. Automate data capture and compliance at scale with extensive AI and neural techniques, developed in-house at iColumbus.ai. A new AI engine recognises text and all-important layout cues in trade documents for accurate extraction. Data remediated with cross-references using machine learning. Contextual filtering based on predictive indicators.

Five accelerators:

• AI-based smart data capture and compliance.
• Advanced analytics dashboards.
• Digital marketplace & open APIs.
• Fully Integrated trade and supply chain on a single platform.
• Comprehensive limits management and risk distribution module.

iColumbus.ai is made of five composable open architecture technologies:

• Omni-channel context sensitive front end.
• Intelligent document exchange.
• API Integration platform.
• Digital partner ecosystem.
• Integrated security services.

Mr Manish Maakan, CEO, iGTB, said: “The extensive use of AI, neural techniques and learning algorithms in banking is no longer fiction or future vision. iColumbus.ai puts banks, corporates and their users ahead of the game to drive extreme paperless trade efficiencies. The iColumbus.ai architecture stack and AI tech stack developed in-house is the key to future-proof technology investments of banks and to jumpstart their profits from trade and supply chain finance business.”

He added: “Paperless trade with iColumbus.ai is just the beginning. This US$18tn a year global trade finance industry is no longer immune to a new wave of innovation powered by Artificial Intelligence. It is estimated that $81 billion is spent annually on avoidable working capital and supply chain management costs. Currently, iColumbus.ai underpins the largest digital trade finance transformation in Europe and the largest trade and supply chain finance transformation in APAC powered by a sophisticated digital counter-party self-onboarding to drive not just digital-led cost savings but achieve true sustainability.”