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June 05, 2024

Innovating banking efficiency: National Bank of Greece transforms operations with Microsoft Azure AI Document Intelligence

In a bold move to refine service efficiency, National Bank of Greece (NBG) built an Azure-powered Document AI solution to transform its document processing. This enables NBG to process, categorize, and extract information from thousands of documents daily at 0.5 seconds per page. This cutting-edge solution has improved the bank’s accuracy to 90%. By seamlessly integrating the solution with customer-facing systems, NBG has transformed its customer experience, enabled a fully digital journey, and drastically reduced waiting times.

National Bank of Greece

For nearly two centuries, National Bank of Greece (NBG) has been a pillar of stability and innovation within the Greek economy. Founded in 1841, NBG has navigated through the evolving financial services landscape by focusing on its customers’ daily needs and greater aspirations to realize a better future together. The bank serves 6 million customers and operates 356 branches across Greece.

"Our goal is to be the bank of first choice for our customers, and we rely on cutting-edge technologies to realize this goal," highlights Georgia Zevgaropoulou, Head of AI Sector in Artificial Intelligence and Technology Innovation Division at National Bank of Greece. Georgia Zevgaropoulou’s division oversees exploring, evaluating, and selecting emerging technologies in order to improve customer service and cut unnecessary costs.

High-performance document categorization and ICR solution

One area that the bank needed to automate to enhance its service was document processing. “Initially, a customer would bring the documents to a branch or email them, then our branch employee would print, scan, and then send them to the back office to manually extract the information," Georgia Zevgaropoulou elaborates. 

NBG first introduced a rule-based, optical character recognition (OCR) solution that would extract information from documents, but it had its limitations. "Our previous solution was limited to a specific document type, PDF, which was a considerable bottleneck given that we handle more than 50 document types,” explains Georgia Zevgaropoulou. The process was also cumbersome, prone to errors, and costly. 

Having already migrated its big data platform to Microsoft Azure, NBG knew where to look to find an alternative. “Azure is familiar to us; it's become very easy for us to start building an application,” shares Georgia Zevgaropoulou. “When we tried Azure AI Document Intelligence—or Form Recognizer, as it was known then—for document processing, the results were impressive in terms of accuracy and the time to market. So, it was an easy decision to continue with Azure.” 

“We were able to build the Document AI solution using Azure in less than four months.”

Georgia Zevgaropoulou, Head of AI Sector in Artificial Intelligence and Technology Innovation Division, National Bank of Greece

NBG started by analyzing 50 million pages of documents to create a dataset. It also used Azure Cognitive Services to enable the solution to recognize the Greek language. “We were able to build the Document AI solution using Azure in less than four months,” says Georgia Zevgaropoulou.

Processing millions of documents

Today, the solution integrates seamlessly with six customer-facing applications, such as digital banking, enabling a better and faster user experience.

Speed was of utmost importance. “Once a customer scans a document and uploads it to one of our channels, they expect immediate feedback so that they can proceed with buying a product or verifying their account details. We needed to process documents from more than 2 million customers in our digital channels in real time, and we needed to be accurate and consistent,” Georgia Zevgaropoulou adds. 

It was also important for the bank to be able to quickly adapt the solution to new use cases and document types. “With Azure, it was very easy to create guidelines for our developers, conduct training, and enable them to scale the solution for more scenarios,” says Georgia Zevgaropoulou. 

Improved speed and accuracy

With the Document AI solution, NBG saw significant improvements in processing time and accuracy. "The Azure-powered solution supports about 20 document categories for almost 60 different document templates, such as tax forms, payroll certificates, IDs, energy certificates, and utility bills. Documents are processed at a rate of below 0.5 seconds per page,” Georgia Zevgaropoulou states. “Our accuracy has also increased to approximately 90%, which has cut down on time spent on manual verification. What’s more, the solution is very good at recognizing the Greek language.” 

“Our accuracy has also increased to approximately 90%. What’s more, the solution is very good at recognizing the Greek language.”

Georgia Zevgaropoulou, Head of AI Sector in Artificial Intelligence and Technology Innovation Division, National Bank of Greece

Moreover, the agility with which NBG can launch new use cases enables it to respond to emerging customer needs. “If we have 10-20 sample documents, we can release a new model and support the new use case within two days,” highlights Georgia Zevgaropoulou.

The Document AI solution has transformed not only NBG’s digital banking services but also simplified routine tasks and real-time decision-making. It also supports regulatory activities. “For example, we can process bulk documents in ad hoc use cases, such as extracting information from historical data. This type of information can be crucial for our reporting, regulatory, or compliance matters.”

With over 700,000 pages processed per month, this Azure-powered solution has become integral to NBG’s banking services. And beyond operational efficiencies, the solution has had a profound impact on NBG's organizational culture. “Having access to the latest technology has become an incentive to our team. It’s even been a factor in attracting new talent," Georgia Zevgaropoulou reflects.

Optimistic about the future

Going paperless is part of NBG’s constant efforts to move towards an era of sustainable growth and economy. “Reducing our environmental footprint is a constant objective for our organization,” says Georgia Zevgaropoulou. “By refining processes and going paperless, we've saved millions of pages in a year and made our operations much faster.”

“By refining processes and going paperless, we've saved millions of pages in a year and made our operations much faster.”

Georgia Zevgaropoulou, Head of AI Sector in Artificial Intelligence and Technology Innovation Division, National Bank of Greece

Looking ahead, NBG is set to further refine its document processing capabilities through standardization and enhanced monitoring. "It's important to constantly monitor and improve the quality of the solution so that we can quickly understand changes in documents and customers’ needs," Georgia Zevgaropoulou underscores. 

"Overall, it was a very satisfying journey. We’ve had to elevate our internal processes and overcome the challenges of multiple document varieties. With Azure, we can be very optimistic about the future," sums up Georgia Zevgaropoulou. 

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