Joining Lloyds in June, Gupta succeeds Ranil Boteju, who recently left to become Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s first chief AI officer. (fintechfutures.com)

Lloyds Banking Group has appointed technology veteran Sameer Gupta as its new chief data and AI officer to oversee the next phase of its AI strategy. 

Joining the bank in June, Gupta will be succeeding some of the responsibilities previously held by Ranil Boteju, who left Lloyds last month after serving as chief data and analytics officer for the past four years. Boteju has since been named the first chief AI officer at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

In his new position, Gupta will be responsible for how AI is responsibly “further scaled across the business”, according to a Lloyds statement. This includes “managing how AI is adopted to improve customer experiences, strengthen fraud prevention and support colleagues with better tools and insights”, the statement continues.

Gupta, who will be reporting directly to the bank’s group chief operating officer (COO), Ron van Kemenade, is currently the managing director and chief analytics officer at Singapore’s DBS Bank, a role he has held for the past nine years. During his tenure, he is credited with embedding AI across the organisation.

His career, which spans over three decades, also includes leadership stints at GE Money, IBM, and Standard Chartered Bank, where he led pricing and cross-sell initiatives for the consumer banking division between 2011 and 2013.

The appointment comes as Lloyds says it is “expanding the practical use of AI”. Recent developments include the launch of an AI-powered financial assistant earlier this year, designed to offer personalised financial coaching to its 23 million digital customers, and becoming the first FTSE 100 company in the UK to deploy a specialist AI agent for boardroom support.

Lloyds, which claims to have invested over £4 billion in digital transformation, is aiming to position itself as “the UK’s biggest fintech”, according to COO van Kemenade.