{"id":91352,"date":"2026-02-16T18:53:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T21:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/892874363"},"modified":"2026-02-16T18:53:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T21:53:36","slug":"natwest-hails-progress-after-a1-2bn-spent-on-tech-last-year-but-true-ai-transformation-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/natwest-hails-progress-after-a1-2bn-spent-on-tech-last-year-but-true-ai-transformation-to-come\/","title":{"rendered":"NatWest hails progress after \u00c2\u00a31.2bn spent on tech last year, but true AI transformation to come"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NatWest bank invested \u00a31.2bn into its information technology transformation in 2025 and saw huge productivity gains as a result, but this year will see artificial intelligence (AI) become truly transformative for customers and staff.<\/p>\n

The bank said it has already freed up \u00a3100m in funds as a result of simplification and the use of the cloud. AI is at the centre of the bank\u2019s plans, with 2025 seeing the technology deployed across the company \u201cat scale\u201d.<\/p>\n

Headline figures for 2025 saw the bank\u2019s software engineers generate 35% of its code through AI software development tools, all 60,000 staff given access to AI productivity software, and thousands of human hours saved. Last year, the bank also embarked on a major collaboration with AI supplier OpenAI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other tech achievements in 2025 included the hiring of 1,000 software developers, 100 new features developed on its retail banking app, the appointment of its first chief AI research officer and the establishment of its AI research office.<\/p>\n

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<\/i>AI foundations set<\/h2>\n

In a blog post<\/a>, NatWest Group CIO Scott Marcar said this year will see the bank take advantage of the AI \u201cbuilding blocks\u201d deployed last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only certainty is that how customers bank will look very different in the future,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why being closer to them, with insight and trust, matters more than ever. As technology reshapes how people live, work and bank, we\u2019ve put in place the building blocks to understand, respond to and serve customers\u2019 fast evolving needs,\u201d wrote Marcar.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year brought AI deployment at scale across NatWest, and as we move into 2026, the transformative benefits are becoming more of a reality for our customers and colleagues \u2013 delivering growth, greater productivity, and, most importantly, deepening relationships \u2013 so that we can be a trusted partner for tomorrow\u2019s banking,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

From a staff perspective, all staff now have access to AI tools including Microsoft Copilot Chat<\/a> and the bank\u2019s internal large language model (LLM), with more than half reported to have taken additional training.<\/p>\n

According to the bank, more than 70,000 hours were saved through automated AI call summaries in its retail business, while relationship managers in its wealth business were able to spend 30% more time on customer conversations by using AI. According to NatWest, through agentic and voice AI, customers will receive \u201cmore intuitive, personalised and seamless interactions\u201d this year.<\/p>\n

In the next few months, 25,000 NatWest customers will have access to its agentic financial assistant within Cora, its customer-facing agentic AI assistant<\/a>. \u201cUnderpinned by OpenAI models, customers will be able to ask natural language questions about their recent spending, in their own words, on their app,\u201d said the bank.<\/p>\n

The bank will then experiment with voice-to-voice AI capability, which aims to provide \u201chuman-like empathy, tone and inflection\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>Wider tech investment<\/h2>\n

As part of its wider multi-year digital transformation, NatWest has added around 6,000 tech staff since 2021. In 2025 alone, it recruited 1,000 software engineers through its India Hub in Bengaluru. Its chief AI researcher, Maja Pantic, is working with AI in areas such as audiovisual conversational AI, multi-biometrics and proprietary small language models.<\/p>\n

Marcar wrote: \u201cWe can\u2019t underestimate the scale of the work we have done to date to rebuild our technology foundations to make us faster, safer and more resilient. A scalable, modular tech stack now underpins how we deliver new products and services, how we integrate with partners, and how we provide the protection and operational resilience customers expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the bank has been moving away from legacy systems in an \u201cinside-out\u201d transformation. It has also created a single, connected view of each customer. \u201cWe can anticipate needs faster, remove friction from everyday banking and make onboarding more seamless,\u201d he wrote on his blog post.<\/p>\n

Marcar stressed that the proliferation of AI will support human workers, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s a future where the expertise of our colleagues is augmented by the intelligence and ease of modern technology.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… .2bn into its information technology<\/span> transformation in 2025 and saw … , with 2025 seeing the technology<\/span> deployed across the company \u00e2\u0080\u009c … more than ever. As technology<\/span> reshapes how people live, work … and ease of modern technology<\/span>.\u00e2\u0080\u009d Read more about tech<\/span> at NatWest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}