Hong Leong Bank has made substantial improvements in the efficiency of its collection operations by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), according to The Sun.

The bank noted that the productivity of its AI-driven collection agents has surged by 15 times, accompanied by an 86% reduction in associated costs.

According to Hong Leong‘s Group Managing Director and CEO Kevin Lam, the deployment of AI voice bots, which manage up to 16 simultaneous calls, has been instrumental in these advancements.

This system, which began its rollout in the latter half of the financial year 2024 (FY24), has replaced the workload previously handled by more than 20 human agents.

While the AI system’s current focus is on handling outbound calls for collections and telemarketing, it is gradually being trained to manage more complex customer service interactions, which require more advanced AI capabilities due to the variability of inquiries.

Lam acknowledged that ongoing investments in AI might cause a slight rise in the bank’s cost-income ratio for FY25, but he expects this to level out at around 40% as the technology becomes more integrated into daily operations.

For FY24, Hong Leong Bank recorded a net profit of RM4.2 billion, marking an increase from RM3.82 billion in the previous year, with revenue growing slightly to RM5.77 billion from RM5.69 billion in FY23.

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