Agentic Digital Finance = AgenticDfin

Section A – Define the Project – Management Discussion Framework

1.        Purpose / Focus – At its core, this initiative is about disciplined automation

a.        It can support a start-up bank, an existing bank, a credit union, or another regulated financial business.

b.       The project may be enterprise-wide or focused on one high-value operating area.

c.        Begin by identifying a specific task, workflow, or decision point that would benefit from automation.

d.       Start with a contained project outside the most sensitive production workflows if that reduces execution risk.

                                                                              i.        Some institutions may decide to prohibit unsanctioned tools entirely.

                                                                            ii.        Others may allow limited use, but only through designated LLMs and approved software tools.

1.        A practical example is controlled experimentation by development or innovation teams before wider rollout.

                                                                          iii.       Look for friction points that slow work, create rework, or increase customer effort.

                                                                          iv.        Prioritize opportunities that improve accuracy, trust, consistency, and scale.

2.        C-Suite leadership should initiate and oversee the process

a.        First determine what, if anything, the institution’s core processor or primary banking platform already offers.

                                                                              i.        Core processors often provide stronger built-in security, integration support, and regulatory alignment than standalone tools.

b.       Target areas where automation can produce measurable value quickly.

                                                                              i.        Accounting and finance operations

1.        Microsoft has already embedded AI capabilities across Microsoft 365 productivity workflows.

                                                                            ii.        Loan processing and preparation for underwriting

                                                                          iii.       Loan review processes that can become more thorough, repeatable, and auditable

                                                                          iv.        Customer service functions across the institution

1.        Build consistency in how questions are answered and requests are routed.

2.        Allow AI to operate only within pre-approved answers, policies, and escalation paths.

3.        Establish the vision and the transformational business case

a.        The primary benefit is time saved for employees and faster response for customers.

                                                                              i.        That time can support lower operating cost, stronger controls, or additional business development capacity.

                                                                            ii.        In a growth strategy, the same staff base may be able to serve more customers and products.

1.        The best outcome is not just savings, but a stronger and more scalable business.

b.       Best case: leadership sees a path to materially improve efficiency, responsiveness, and quality.

c.        Worst case: the initiative is driven only by fear of missing out rather than a grounded operating need.

d.       Define specific targets, with efficiency as a starting point but not the only goal.

                                                                              i.        What customer problems will this solve?

                                                                            ii.        What internal operating problems will it solve?

                                                                          iii.       What should be ranked first, second, and third for execution?

1.        Re-rank priorities as more is learned about cost, risk, data quality, and adoption.

                                                                          iv.        The strategy should clearly support:

1.        Growth

2.        Efficiency

3.        Accuracy

4.        Security

                                                                            v.        Risk reduction through better controls, fewer manual errors, and clearer accountability

                                                                          vi.        Higher service quality in a digital finance environment where response speed and consistency matter

e.        Oversight for AI use in a regulated financial setting

                                                                              i.        Identify regulatory considerations, policy implications, and likely examiner questions early.

                                                                            ii.        Confirm whether the project architect and leadership team have the right experience.

1.        If not, determine how those gaps will be covered through internal experts, advisors, or implementation partners.

f.          Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology – important for controlled enterprise use

                                                                              i.        Consider RAG to improve protection of proprietary information and to ground responses in approved enterprise content.

1.        Staff can then work with general knowledge, a selected LLM, and approved internal data under controlled access rules.

                                                                            ii.        Restrict staff access where appropriate.

1.        General policy and procedure access

2.        Approved customer letters, templates, and departmental knowledge bases

a.        Access should be controlled by department, role, and business need.

                                                                          iii.       Protect proprietary information through data classification, role-based permissions, logging, and vendor controls.

                                                                          iv.        Evaluate and price multiple providers before making a platform decision.

1.        IBM

2.        Microsoft Azure

3.        Amazon Web Services (AWS)

                                                                            v.        Decide which LLM or model family will be used, under what conditions, and for which business tasks.

                                                                          vi.        Three major drivers of this shift are already clear:

                                                                        vii.        AI must be trustworthy at scale—hallucinations and black-box outputs continue to slow adoption in regulated environments.

                                                                     viii.        Unstructured data is now mission-critical because much enterprise knowledge sits in PDFs, recordings, messages, and other non-tabular formats.

Section B – Who, What, and When

1.        Build governance and executive sponsorship

a.        Adapt the governance model to the size, complexity, and transaction volume of the institution.

                                                                              i.        In addition to a lead project architect, sub-architects or workstream leaders may be needed.

b.       The project architect should be accountable for overall design, coordination, and delivery.

                                                                              i.        Key participants usually include operations, deployment, business owners, and implementation team members.

a.        Risk

b.       Compliance

c.        Technology

2.        Define decision rights

a.        Approval processes should be documented and consistently followed.

b.       Accountability for risk, quality, and outcomes must be explicit.

3.        Personal agent

a.        Define the intended outcomes for any personal agent or assistant capability.

b.       Identify friction points the agent is meant to reduce.

c.        Set a high bar for accuracy.

                                                                                                                                                                        i.        In regulated finance, near-perfect reliability matters because errors can create customer, compliance, and reputational risk.

d.       Design for trust and scale from the beginning.

e.        Clarify whether the agent is employee-facing, customer-facing, or limited to internal productivity use.

4.        Define scope, objectives, and success metrics

5.        Set measurable goals from the beginning, such as:

a.        Automate clearly defined steps rather than vague ambitions.

b.       Improve onboarding, servicing, lending, or finance operations.

c.        Reduce cost, turnaround time, and manual effort.

d.       Increase accuracy, control, and customer satisfaction.

e.        Remove friction for staff and customers.

6.        Identify and prioritize the first wave of use cases based on value, risk, data readiness, and implementation speed.