Technological alliance between Microsoft and CaixaBank. The US multinational and the bank have decided to work together on the development of new Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications for the financial sector and will also investigate the potential that the new immersive virtual environment provided by the Metaverse offers for banking.
The new innovation laboratory in artificial intelligence and Metaverse will be called AI Innovation Lab and will be located in Barcelona. As of today, this development center is not expected to have specific facilities or its own staff. The idea of CaixaBank and Microsoft is to staff the laboratory with professionals from both companies who will work together to execute the different projects they want to develop. "The AI Innovation Lab will operate with different tailor-made working groups, formed by professionals from both organizations and linked to each project," explain the financial institution.
The bank will channel this alliance through CaixaBank Tech, the company that provides technological services to the financial group and which has a staff of more than 600 people. To this company, created in 2021 from the former Silk, professionals from Bankia's technology area have also recently joined, and it already has a specialized team in Artificial Intelligence applied to banking and with its own Center of Excellence to promote innovation in this field.
The new laboratory will work in coordination with the R&D hub in Artificial Intelligence that Microsoft already has in Barcelona and which is made up of a hundred software developers, data scientists and machine learning specialists. According to the president of Microsoft Spain, Alberto Granados, this "strategic joint innovation agreement" will facilitate "the development of solutions that will transform the experience of financial services customers."
In this sense, one of the projects that could be addressed is the design of how bank offices should be in immersive and interactive virtual spaces like the Metaverse. Work will also be done on the implementation of hybrid workspaces. "The Metaverse can have multiple possibilities in the financial sector, from the creation of a new channel of interaction with clients to the creation of internal collaboration models in virtual offices, including the incorporation and development of talent," CaixaBank and Microsoft point out.
The idea is that the laboratory will carry out proof-of-concepts, prototypes, and disruptive use cases, resulting from the application of AI and with the aim of improving process efficiency, customer satisfaction, or cybersecurity.
"Joining forces with Microsoft in AI will help us to accelerate the creation of real products and solutions, applying the most innovative technology that exists in this field," says CaixaBank's Director of Media, Luis Javier Blas Agüeros. According to the executive, CaixaBank has been using AI for more than a decade and has launched initiatives in this area "that have been a novelty worldwide."
CaixaBank also has a hub in Barcelona specialized in the development of new technologies linked to payment methods. In the Payment Innovation Hub, located at Pier 01 of Tech Barcelona, the bank has Visa, Samsung, Arval, and Global Payments as partners. In parallel, within its open innovation strategy, the entity collaborates with different startups, and has launched, in alliance with reference partners, co-creation programs such as Zone2boost and Start4big.