Commonwealth Bank of Australia has poached Ranil Boteju from Lloyds witth a brief to lead the Australian bank's sprawling AI initiatives.
Boteju is currently the group chief data and analytics afficer at Llloyds, responsible for the bank’s AI, data and machine learning strategy. Leading a team of more than 2,000 people, he successfully scaled AI-driven tools and customer products, delivering more than 50 Generative AI initiatives that lifted Lloyds’ ranking in the 2025 Evident AI Index by 12 places.
A former Commonwealth Bank employee, Boteju returns to Australia as Commbank's chief AI officer after 15 years overseas. Before joining Lloyds in 2021, he held senior roles at Standard Chartered and HSBC in Singapore and Hong Kong.
CBA is currently is embedding AI across its business, deploying the technology to cut fraud and to significantly speed up loan applications and annual credit reviews.
In September last year, the bank teamed up with Amazon Web Services to launch an inhouse 'AI Factory' with the aim of accelerating the adoption of Generative AI. It also recently sealed a multi-year deal with OpenAI to provide employees with access to ChatGPT Entperise.
Commenting on the appointment, Matt Comyn, CBA CEO, says: “CBA is focused on bringing together world-class talent, technology and partnerships that help us deliver on our strategy of building tomorrow’s bank today. As we scale to deliver even greater value from AI for our customers and our people, Ranil’s global leadership in harnessing AI and data will be instrumental.”