Customers Bank, a subsidiary of Customers Bancorp, has agreed a multiyear strategic collaboration with OpenAI aimed at automating parts of lending and customer onboarding.
The US-based bank said it will deploy artificial intelligence across its commercial banking operations, using OpenAI’s models to redesign workflows across lending, deposits and payments.
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The arrangement extends a relationship that began in 2023, when Customers Bank was an early adopter of ChatGPT Enterprise.
The expanded effort includes direct, onsite engagement with OpenAI’s technical teams and resources.
Customers Bank said it is not adopting off-the-shelf AI products. Instead, it plans to work with OpenAI to develop custom capabilities based on the bank’s own processes, data and institutional knowledge.
The bank said the goal is to free up its bankers to spend more time on its single point of contact model, while keeping customer relationships fully human.
All AI tools will run within Customers Bank’s secure, enterprise-grade infrastructure.
According to the bank, AI deployment is already in production and advancing “rapidly”.
The next phase will focus on end-to-end workflow orchestration across three areas that it views as central to commercial banking performance.
In lending, the bank plans to use AI for tasks such as document collection, credit memoranda preparation, legal documentation and post-closing portfolio and collateral monitoring.
For deposits, the bank said it will apply AI to streamline digital onboarding and account set-up.
In payments, Customers Bank plans to use AI to accelerate capabilities for cubiX, described as the bank’s proprietary $2 trillion payments platform. The bank said this will include agent-ready APIs and AI-driven risk and compliance tooling.
Sam Sidhu, president and CEO of Customers Bancorp, said: “We expect a fundamental re-engineering of how Customers Bank operates.
“We have spent the last year building the operational and governance infrastructure to deploy AI at scale. Today, 75% of our team members use tools powered by OpenAI. This strategic collaboration with OpenAI gives us the frontier models, engineering expertise, and ability to co-create a roadmap toward becoming an AI-native bank.
“By the end of 2026, our bankers will spend more of their time on the work that creates value for clients and our shareholders.”
