Danske Bank has selected Conpend’s Trade AI solution to increase efficiency and compliance in its trade finance offering and kick-start its strategy to achieve process optimisation via digitalisation 

LONDON, UK, 22 March 2022 – Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark, announces its collaboration with Conpend, a leading provider of technology-assisted document checking software for trade finance processes. Danske Bank will leverage Conpend’s TRADE AI app to enhance and digitise its trade finance related processes – hence simplifying and streamlining existing processes, enhancing efficiency and transparency, reducing the probability of error and enabling an easily accessible end-to-end trade finance transaction audit trail.

The app was developed specifically to encourage automation and digitisation of the value chain while accepting the current situation with respect to documentary checking. Paper-based documents, as well as digital documentation, can be scanned and entered into the application, which ‘reads’ the contents and checks them against a set of pre-defined rules. The artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities automatically check against anti-money laundering (AML), know your customer (KYC) and sanctions regulations, thereby enhancing the compliance and documentary reviewing process for trade finance specialists as well as risk and compliance officers.

By utilising TRADE AI, Danske Bank’s compliance team will allow a greater focus on performing subsequent analyses and thereby empowering operatives to make informed business and risk decisions quickly and accurately. For Danske Bank, collaborating with Conpend is a crucial development in its wider trade finance strategy centred on process and compliance enhancements through digitalisation.

“By converting physical documents into digital data, you create the opportunity to utilize that data for trade and compliance related processes,” explained Erik Punt, Product Owner of the trade finance portfolio in Danske Bank. “This is why we are excited to be working with Conpend. Our partnership is allowing Danske Bank to take a huge stride towards creating a digital environment around a business area that is characterised by physical documents and other manual processes.”

Roll-out will be a multi-step process, with Danske Bank gradually introducing the TRADE AI solution to all relevant staff, including trade finance advisors, compliance and other stakeholders to ensure business continuity. Forming part of Danske Bank’s short and longer-term digitalisation strategy, the app will deliver benefits in various stages.

Punt said: “We expect to see significant efficiency gains after initial investment into teaching the system to capture and qualify data. With this, data from the large range of complex customer documents will – together with our financial crime compliance specialists – allow us to perform different kinds of analyses. In the longer term, Conpend’s TRADE AI solution will help enable further digitisation of our trade finance products, ultimately resulting in a more efficient value chain.”

Marc Smith, Founder and Director at Conpend, said: “Danske Bank is a bank committed to providing effective, future-proof solutions for its trade finance clients. We are delighted they have entrusted Conpend to accelerate their digital transformation and help them and their clients achieve unparalleled operational trade finance efficiencies through the transformative potential of our TRADE AI app.”

Torben Sauer, CEO at Conpend, said: “By utilising the TRADE AI app to further enhance their trade finance processes, we are confident Danske Bank will realise great efficiency, improved compliance and productivity gains. We look forward to being a key part of their digital journey and are proud to support one of the most successful banks in Europe.”

“What we have found particularly valuable is that throughout the implementation process, Conpend has willingly and actively worked with us to tailor their solution to address our specific business requirements. We are pleased to be working with a company that is committed to creating the best outcomes for its clients, and one that understands and helps to gain back our recognition by customers as the preferred trade finance banking partner across the Nordic region,” concluded Punt.