From AI integration to tokenization: Regional leaders are looking to digital innovation to cut costs, increase efficiency, and deliver on an expanding menu of client needs and expectations.
A drive for improved customer experience, greater efficiency, and deeper technological integration defines corporate and institutional digital banking today. Leading institutions are modernizing core platforms and investing in refreshed user interfaces (UIs) and personalized dashboards.
A priority now is integrating AI and machine learning to build next-generation corporate assistants, automate high-volume processes like trade finance, and strengthen root-cause analysis. Banks are responding with robust API suites, modern payment-tracking standards, and real-time connectivity. They’re also beginning to harness open banking, tokenization, and smart contracts to deliver 24/7 programmable services that give clients greater autonomy, better risk control, and sharper liquidity management.
This year’s winners understand that their clients are on the same transformative path, as they digitize and explore the opportunities enabled by AI.
Africa
Arab Bank
Arab Bank upgraded its Corporate Digital Gateway with refreshed UI/UX, persona-based dashboards, basket payments, and Swift GPI for real-time payment tracking. The bank also added APIs for transaction input and inquiry across all payment types, boosting corporate efficiency. Gateway now delivers real-time and forecasted cash positions, helping clients manage liquidity and anticipate shortages.
The bank also launched an enhanced trade-finance platform with an improved interface, expanded capabilities, and greater client autonomy. It supports all trade products—letters of credit (LCs), including draft and standby LCs; guarantees; and discounting—offering issuance, edits, resubmissions, a comprehensive dashboard, customizable reports, and robust notifications on transaction status and upcoming settlements.
Arab Bank’s holding-company structure allows regional entities to manage trade portfolios for parents and subsidiaries while reflecting signatory authorities. The bank plans to roll out an AI-enabled cloud solution for trade-finance document examination and already uses AI to identify missed opportunities in LCs, bills for collection, and customer utilization.
Asia-Pacific
DBS Bank
DBS Bank’s AI-enhanced self-service platform provides a single hub for all service requests, offering a single entry point for clients to manage company, product, and user details. Leveraging GenAI and building its own large language model, DBS revamped its next-generation corporate banking assistant, Joy AI, which addresses complex queries via dynamic, human-like chat support. The chatbot launched on November 9.
Aiming to reduce negative client feedback, the bank continuously monitors calls from Singaporean customers and employs GenAI for sharper summarization and insight generation to improve root-cause analysis of service requests. Upcoming improvements aim to enhance the client journey and increase digital adoption via educational guides pushed through multiple channels.
DBS’ transformative initiative, Managing through Journeys, unifies the bank’s efforts to deliver positive customer outcomes, break down silos, and foster innovation. The strategy takes a customer-centric approach, including cross-functional collaboration with shared key performance indicators and AI/machine learning integration.
Central & Eastern Europe
mBank
Multiple factors drive innovation strategy at mBank, but the most powerful of these is the client, says Dariusz Nalepa, director of Transaction Banking: “Their needs and expectations, both spoken and unspoken, shape every decision we make. We analyze pain points and aspirations to create solutions that simplify life and support business growth.”
Net promoter score (NPS) and the closed-loop process have been part of mBank’s DNA for 15 years and play a key role in keeping its understanding of its clients up to date. The bank sees NPS not as just a metric but as an ongoing dialogue with customers. Feedback is collected continuously, analyzed, and acted upon; and every quarter, each product department receives detailed reports with comments and pain points. These form the basis for the bank’s innovation, product development, and digitalization plans.
“Of course, client feedback is not our only inspiration,” Nalepa notes. “We monitor megatrends, emerging technologies, and behavioral shifts. We leverage AI, automation, and personalization to deliver secure, intuitive, and integrated experiences.”
Priorities for the coming five years include lifecycle-based growth and a further push for both customer experience and organizational excellence. “At the heart of all actions is the client,” Nalepa says, “supported by technology and innovation to turn goals into reality.”
Lating America
Banco Bci
Chile’s Banco Bci established market leadership with the launch of 360|Connect in 2020. Registering high user satisfaction, the bank is now expanding the solution to Bci Peru and Bci Miami.
This year, Bci contines to innovate, introducing open banking for viewing external accounts and transactions within 360|Connect and cash flow forecasting for more efficient liquidity management. A new mobile app for signatures and authorizations will launch early in the third quarter to simplify workflows, complementing a recently implemented, scalable payment engine.
These innovations underscore Bci’s commitment to delivering cutting-edge financial management tools, building on last year’s integration of comprehensive digital trade finance solutions including bulk international payments, FX trading, and Bci Tracker, which tracks all the client’s Swift GPI payments.
Middle East
Saudi National Bank
Saudi National Bank (SNB)’s corporate mobile app offers real-time visibility and control over enterprise finances. A key feature is support for configurable, multilevel authorization workflows. This allows businesses to define user roles and permissions, ensuring compliance with internal policies. Instant notification enhances operational agility.
New self-service features allow businesses to manage account representatives and authorizers directly, ensuring quick adaptation to organizational changes and maintaining business continuity. Immediate deletion of representatives or authorizers tightens internal controls and mitigates risk. The app also enables online requests for sold and draft checks and simplified online increases to cash deposit limits, reducing the administrative burden for clients and improving cash handling. SNB reports that its digital services have reduced turnaround times and increased transparency, giving customers direct control, aligning with regulatory best practices, and intensifying the bank’s commitment to client support through innovation and trust.
North America
Citi
Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions processes nearly $5 trillion daily across 94 countries, supporting multinational corporations, financial institutions, and public sector organizations. CitiDirect, the bank’s flagship institutional online and mobile banking platform, offers integrated cash, payments, receivables, and trade management across more than 90 countries and 135 currencies. And the bank’s CitiConnect API suite embeds banking services directly into clients’ ERP and TMS systems. Looking ahead, Citi Token Services lays the foundation for the bank’s Digital Assets offering, utilizing tokenization and smart contracts for programmable, 24/7 cash management and trade finance solutions.
Citi leverages AI and machine learning internally to enhance the client experience, prioritizing the development of new features based on client feedback and telemetry. The bank also sees these technologies as enhancing efficiency and mitigating risk. Examples include automation of document processing in trade finance as well as stronger regulatory compliance and fraud prevention.
Western Europe
BBVA
BBVA’s success in corporate digital banking stems from its investment in cloud, data, and AI, and the integration of these technologies for global, multiproduct solutions. BBVA Empresas is now a unified global platform, extending its operation beyond Spain to every region where the bank does business. The platform consolidates local, legacy, and evolved global and local digital solutions and facilitates an omnichannel digital relationship with clients through web, app, API, and direct channels. “For our corporate clients, the critical advantage lies in a unified global architecture,” says Jaime Saénz de Tejada, global head of commercial and institutional client solutions. “It standardizes data and processes to industrialize innovation at scale, delivering AI-driven insights and reusable services. An open API layer allows partners to embed our capabilities directly into clients’ workflows. Together, these pillars create a self-reinforcing flywheel that reduces risk, accelerates time-to-value, and continuously enhances liquidity, working capital, and operational efficiency.”
