Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced that Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Japan’s largest financial services provider, is accelerating its cloud-first strategy with AWS as its preferred cloud provider.
MUFG’s collaboration with the world’s leading cloud provider will help it apply the latest cloud technologies, including generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) and machine learning (ML), to better serve customers. MUFG will use AWS technologies to inform data-driven business decisions, automate processes, and develop new digital financial products to meet rapidly evolving customer needs across asset servicing, banking, and fund financing.
By moving from on-premises data centers to AWS, MUFG reduced the cost of operating its standard IT infrastructure by 20% and gained the agility to innovate personalized financial services more rapidly. Operating in the cloud, MUFG can provide clients with faster financial processing times, more timely insights, and secure access to digital services that promote long-term financial security. For example, MUFG used AWS to develop Money Canvas, a secure asset management platform that enables customers to use their mobile device to select and manage the MUFG and partner financial services best suited for them. Working with other financial companies, MUFG offers customers a broad range of financial products and services, like stocks, mutual funds, crowdfunding, insurance, and loyalty point management, to build and grow their financial portfolio using a single mobile app. MUFG’s 2.5 million Money Canvas customers receive customized financial advice to guide retirement planning, investment returns, and economic uncertainty.
Using generative AI and ML to reinvent customer experiences
MUFG is experimenting with building generative AI applications by using Amazon Bedrock, a service that makes multiple foundation models (FMs) available via an API. MUFG plans to use AWS for more than 100 potential generative AI use cases to improve productivity across all lines of its business, including customer service, finance, human resources, and sales.
MUFG increased productivity by 30% using Amazon SageMaker (a fully managed service to build, train, and deploy ML models) to automate account transfer requests. MUFG’s Markets Business Unit, which provides products and services to a diverse range of customers, built an analytics environment to gain new insights from data, accelerate business outcomes, and streamline operations. Using Amazon SageMaker, the division was able to quickly optimize trading portfolios, identify prospective customers, and automate the analysis of contract documents.
MUFG will also leverage Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, an ML hub with FMs, built-in algorithms, and pre-built ML solutions, to access pre-trained models that can condense lengthy reports, financial statements, and customer inquiries into digestible summaries.
Measuring employee engagement with analytics
Over its 360-year history, MUFG traditionally collected and analyzed data in siloes within its diverse group of banks, which made it challenging to glean insights for decision making. Today, the bank uses Amazon Redshift, a cloud data warehouse, to turn this data into predictive insights that can optimize sales activities at branches, enhance customer interactions, and promote operational efficiencies.
MUFG is also using analytics tools to improve employee engagement, aggregate survey response data, and distribute response results with its Pulse Survey platform. With Amazon QuickSight, a cloud-based business intelligence service, MUFG reduced the time it takes to aggregate employee responses by 25% and lowered operational costs by approximately 70% compared to legacy technology. By providing real-time information on employee engagement, MUFG’s 3,000 managers are able to make timely decisions that help to maintain its people-focused culture and boost employee performance.
“AWS is helping MUFG achieve its goal of becoming a digital financial platform by leveraging cutting-edge technologies, including generative AI,” said Toshiki Ochi, managing corporate executive and group chief information officer at MUFG. “Our cloud-first approach with AWS has given us the agility to rapidly innovate on behalf of our customers, reach the business velocity that we couldn’t achieve on premises, and accelerate the way we bring secure, industry-leading solutions to market at reduced cost.”
“The financial services industry is undergoing a significant digital transformation as heightened consumer expectations for personalized, frictionless experiences drive innovative, new services powered by generative AI,” said Scott Mullins, managing director, Worldwide Financial Services at AWS. “Combining AWS’s broad functionality, scalability, and approach to innovation with MUFG’s financial services expertise is transforming its business and accelerating the launch of innovative digital experiences for its employees and customers.”