TD Bank Says AI Will Reduce Costs and Enhance Client Services

TD Bank Group said Monday (Sept. 29) that it is adopting new artificial intelligence and other digital solutions to accelerate its growth and enhance its performance.

In a press release issued ahead of the bank’s Investor Day on Monday, Raymond Chun, group president and CEO at TD Bank Group, said: “We are building a simpler, faster and more efficient TD to outpace the market and accelerate growth. We’re investing in talent, harnessing AI and deploying new digital capabilities to help our clients achieve their financial goals.”

In a speech delivered later during the TD Investor Day, Chun said TD Bank will reduce its costs by between 2 billion Canadian dollars and 2.5 billion Canadian dollars (about $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion), Bloomberg reported Monday.

Some of the savings will come from a restructuring program that was announced earlier this year, while about 500 million Canadian dollars of the savings will come from new automation and AI, according to the report.

TD Bank also aims to boost its revenue by growing its fee-generating businesses, including wealth management, Chun said, per the report.

To help with this mission, the bank plans to hire more front-line employees in this part of the business, according to the report. TD Bank plans to add 1,200 wealth management advisers in Canada, 500 retail financial advisers in the United States, and 900 employees in small business and commercial banking.

Chun became CEO in February and worked to stem losses and restore investor confidence that was shaken when TD Bank pleaded guilty to multiple charges for failings in its anti-money laundering measures at its U.S. operation and agreed to pay $3.09 billion.

In April, TD Bank said it would open a new office in New York City for its AI research and development center, Layer 6, to more closely support the bank’s U.S. operations and access an expanded pool of talent.

During an August earnings call, Chun emphasized TD’s technology efforts and said, “leadership in digital and mobile is absolutely critical.”

Chun highlighted TD AI Prism, which is designed to bolster client personalization through accelerated AI-driven insights; an AI assistant at TD Securities that can boost front-office productivity by rapidly synthesizing 8,500 proprietary research reports; and machine learning models in TD’s U.S. AML transaction monitoring environment, which are designed to improve program effectiveness and efficiency.