Wendy Redshaw, chief digital info officer (CDIO) at NatWest Retail Financial institution, has had a distinguished profession main technology-led change in among the world’s greatest monetary providers organisations. Now, she’s utilizing that have to drive much more innovation.
After 4 years as CIO for collaborative expertise options with Deutsche Financial institution, Redshaw says she was wanting to work for a UK finance home. In late 2018, she discovered the right dwelling at NatWest as head of expertise and digital distribution for the non-public financial institution.
“The chance was attention-grabbing as a result of NatWest was prepared for digital transformation however wasn’t naturally sitting in a management place at the moment,” she says. “The position allowed me to land and take into consideration what to do. I discovered an organisation that was basically centered on its clients and maybe had much less digital expertise in-house.”
After working along with her crew to ship technological enhancements throughout the non-public financial institution offline and on-line, Redshaw moved into the CDIO place in February 2020. “It wasn’t simply because I wished an extended acronym than most technologists,” she jokes.
“We created the position so we might sew collectively enterprise and expertise as a result of, as with many organisations, expertise had traditionally been one thing that occurred over there, and the enterprise did their factor, after which they’d give the technologists one thing to work on. We wished higher integration.”
Embracing digital change
Redshaw says the creation of her CDIO position in 2020 was a public assertion that NatWest wished to create a partnership strategy to expertise and enterprise: “This can be a digital financial institution within the making, and hopefully, with the outcomes that we’ve seen, we’ve achieved our goals.”
The technological transformation in banking providers that Redshaw oversees at NatWest at present differs enormously from the finance trade she joined as a software program engineer in 1987.
“We didn’t name it digital then,” she says. “I keep in mind the main target was on, ‘How can we use expertise to make issues faster, less complicated and safer for our clients?’” She factors to work on a safety module for the London Inventory Change and the start of the settlement techniques CHAPS and Euroclear.
“There was loads of change the place expertise was being introduced in, nevertheless it was extra for the underpinning providers than for the consumer-facing areas,” she says, earlier than fast-forwarding to the present-day financial institution. “Over that point, we’ve seen that digital is now within the arms of our retail clients.”
Redshaw says the shift in technological focus additionally helped immediate her swap to the retail aspect of banking. After a profession driving behind-the-scenes IT adjustments in main corporations, equivalent to Lloyds TSB, Barclays Capital and Royal Financial institution of Scotland, her present position at NatWest is targeted on delivering progressive buyer providers.
“That’s the place the thrilling stuff is occurring. Sure, in fact, we use AI throughout a number of areas of the organisation – one thing like 17% of our fashions are AI-based now, equivalent to for controlling fraud, monetary crime and so forth,” she says.
“Nevertheless, when it comes to affecting human beings, digital providers are at our clients’ fingertips. If you concentrate on my driver for going into the CDIO position, the client is the place I believed I’d have probably the most influence.”
Delivering pioneering improvements
As CDIO, Readshaw is straight accountable to the group CIO and retail banking CEO. Answerable for digital operations management, she manages 4,500 folks throughout 4 areas globally and leads the supply of retail banking expertise for Royal Financial institution of Scotland, NatWest and Ulster Financial institution North.
Redshaw’s crew is digitalising providers to make life simpler for the group’s clients. Their work is supported by a deliberate funding of £3.5bn from 2023 to 2025, with greater than 70% of spending focused at knowledge and expertise.
NatWest has 10.9 million digitally lively retail and enterprise banking clients and three.5 million use on-line banking platforms. The arduous work continues apace. In 2024, Redshaw led the launch of a retail banking app on Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional digital actuality headset.
Considered one of her proudest achievements is the introduction of generative AI (GenAI) into the financial institution’s conversational assistant, Cora. She says the financial institution made an early transfer into chatbots. Cora was launched in 2017. The expertise might reply primary questions, however Redshaw wished it to do extra.
“After I joined in 2018, I realised it was fairly an excellent channel to do one thing with,” she says. “I had some grand ambitions for her – issues like digital avatars having a voice, and all these participating methods of doing issues. I stated, ‘Look, I see this specific expertise being one thing we might get shifting on’.”
Redshaw noticed that, whereas machine studying expertise was progressing at tempo, it wasn’t fairly prepared for the large leap in digital experiences she envisioned. Nevertheless, the general public launch of generative AI fashions in late 2022 helped flip idea right into a sensible actuality. Working with specialists from IBM’s shopper engineering crew to develop the preliminary proof of idea, NatWest launched its next-generation assistant, Cora+, in June 2024.
Cora+ is a multichannel platform that securely accesses knowledge from a number of sources, together with merchandise, providers and banking info. The digital assistant expertise is powered by IBM’s Watsonx Assistant and constructed on IBM Cloud. Estimates recommend the expertise is making a 150% enchancment in satisfaction for some buyer queries.
“It was the right instance of an curiosity in expertise, an curiosity in folks, and an curiosity in delivering enterprise worth,” she says. “I really feel very enthusiastic about how we’ve taken one thing that simply answered questions and moved into generative AI at scale for tens of millions of shoppers. And it’s solely step one. I’ve obtained large ambitions for what I wish to do with that expertise.”
Constructing robust partnerships
Cora+ makes use of ChatGPT 3.5 alongside an unnamed GPT massive language mannequin (LLM). The second mannequin is skilled to evaluate the output of the primary mannequin. Whereas the GPT fashions play an vital position in NatWest’s digital technique, the organisation is raring to maintain an open strategy to AI and innovation.
Redshaw says the group desires to keep away from being locked into a selected LLM. She desires the potential to swap from massive to small language fashions (SLMs). Organisations can use SLMs to derive outputs from constrained quantities of information that require much less computing energy, which is vital for a giant enterprise like NatWest that desires to fulfill sustainability targets.
“Because of this, it was a case of, ‘OK IBM, we like working with you, however we wish to have the ability to swap the language fashions out and in relying on the enterprise requirement’,” she says. “And so they had been like, ‘Completely’. So, that’s nice. We’ve the identical mindset round utilizing the perfect of the whole lot to get worth for our clients safely.”
“This can be a digital financial institution within the making, and hopefully, with the outcomes that we’ve seen, we’ve achieved our goals”
Wendy Redshaw, NatWest Retail Financial institution
Along with the work on Cora+, Redshaw and her colleagues are analysing how AI can enhance buyer experiences in different areas. NatWest has labored with IBM to develop a digital authorized assistant powered by GenAI. This software streamlines contract administration and enhances accessibility, particularly for neurodivergent customers. The software helps colleagues with compliance checks, producing 20% effectivity features.
Extra usually, Redshaw is proud her crew completes 1000’s of releases yearly. The division’s give attention to micro-projects is as vital as delivering large-scale initiatives and helps NatWest hit tight transformation deadlines. Throughout all initiatives, IBM acts as a key expertise companion, with Redshaw suggesting the character of the long-term working relationship with the tech big is like interacting with folks on the inner crew.
John Duigenan, distinguished engineer and basic supervisor of the worldwide monetary providers trade at IBM, says shifting to fixed innovation, experimentation, and studying is typical of the work his firm sees in its most pioneering purchasers. “We started working with a trusted companion, and we obtained to be taught collectively,” he stated, referring to IBM’s relationship with NatWest.
“It’s nice we co-create approaches to utilizing expertise and collaborate on innovation. Our groups mix extremely nicely, and we ship collectively in new methods. We’ve an strategy that claims, ‘We all know why this work will matter for all of us as a result of we will measure the influence’.”
Offering new experiences
Redshaw displays on achievements throughout the previous few years. Whereas the advantages of the digital transformation she’s enacted at NatWest are clear, there’s all the time a possibility to do extra.
She says the speedy tempo of transformation makes it troublesome to foretell with any diploma of certainty what’s going to occur subsequent: “What’s going to the success metrics be in three years? We gained’t be judged on the identical metrics as a result of digital banking is altering rapidly.”
Nevertheless, she expects to see developments in some key areas. “Within the AI area, I anticipate to see extra voice,” she says. “In the intervening time, Cora listens to our telephony and sends a textual content, a deep hyperlink, or one thing else that’s required. Sooner or later, I feel it’ll in all probability reply the telephone and cope with questions.”
Redshaw additionally expects progress in text-based answering. Her financial institution’s analysis suggests folks in monetary difficulties usually want having a guilt-free dialog with a bot relatively than a human. “I might anticipate one thing in that monetary well being and help area that makes use of pure language,” she says.
There’s even the potential for advances in sudden areas. Redshaw says she’s eager so as to add Cora to ATMs, one thing that she was beforehand instructed was not possible.
“I’ve now spoken to some innovation engineers, and so they’ve stated they suppose it is likely to be attainable,” she says. “So, I believe we are going to see one thing like a digital level of presence.”
Lastly, Redshaw expects the financial institution to proceed honing its strategy to cellular. “Individuals now have their financial institution of their pocket,” she says. “I think about we are going to give extra richness and engagement by way of these gadgets. Despite the fact that our cellular technique is nice, I feel it’ll lean in direction of extra engagement and personalisation throughout the subsequent 24 months.”
