MUFG ventures deeper into AI, aims to develop new financial services

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG) seeks to develop new financial products thanks to the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI). Earlier today, the Japanese financial major announced that its subsidiary Japan Digital Design, Inc. (JDD) has launched a business alliance with ExaWizards Inc. in order to accelerate the development of services for the financial sector. Along with the conclusion of the alliance agreement, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. a subsidiary of MUFG, has made an investment in ExaWizards.

Through the partnership, JDD and ExaWizards will conduct development studies of services leveraging synergies between MUFG’s significant amount of financial sector data and its customer base and ExaWizards’ product development capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI). The partners aim to enhance services that combine AI and finance. The studies will pursue the development of online-finance products and the creation of new credit models making use of information such as deposit and withdrawal data, enabling them to provide better services quickly and smoothly.

MUFG notes that Japan’s labor force declines and employees become increasingly international and diverse. That is why, the two companies will engage in development studies of services that offer AI-based support for personnel matters that are key to corporate competitiveness, such as skills development and hiring. The companies will develop HR Tech services specialized for financial services using video and voice analysis technology. This includes features such as the use of video to allow AI to learn the tacit knowledge and know-how of high performers and transfer it to all employees.

This is not the first time MUFG pushes into AI. In November last year, for example, the financial services giant became one of the investors in Xenodata Lab, a Tokyo-based firm that leverages the power of artificial intelligence to provide finance data analytics products.

MUFG’s retail Forex subsidiary – kabu.com, has also been active in adopting AI-based solutions. For instance, in December last year, the broker said it would launch a risk management tool codenamed “AI Derivatives” .