HSBC launches smart checking:AI-powered solution to transform trade finance documentation processing

HSBC has announced the launch of Smart Checking, an AI-powered solution designed to transform and standardise how trade finance documentation is processed, traced, and checked at the bank. This is a milestone in the digitalisation of documentary trade and reflects HSBC’s commitment to leveraging technology to make trade finance more consistent and faster to process.

Smart Checking combines HSBC’s proprietary AI technology with the expertise of its trade specialists to read, interpret, and check trade documents at scale. The solution enables AI to handle high-volume, repetitive tasks while freeing experienced specialists to apply their judgement where it has the greatest impact.

For clients, faster document processing can accelerate time to payment, providing greater certainty and enabling businesses to access liquidity and working capital sooner.

Thomas Elliott, Chief Operating Officer, Global Trade Solutions at HSBC, said, “Smart Checking is an ideal combination of AI and human expertise. AI handles the scale and complexity of documentary trade, while human judgement is essential to understanding exceptions and making the decisions that matter. By co-creating the solution with our trade experts, we are building technology that boosts efficiency, practicality and innovation.

“Smart Checking is designed around compliance and policy requirements, with confidence-based workflows determining where automation is appropriate and where human review is required. With faster document handling, this can shorten the time to payment for our clients, which can improve certainty and help businesses unlock liquidity and working capital earlier.”

Built on extensive trade finance experience

Smart Checking is built on HSBC’s extensive experience and scale in documentary trade, supported by its substantial repository of trade finance documentation and the knowledge of specialists around the world who were instrumental in shaping and testing the solution.

These experts helped define how exceptions should be presented, ensuring the workflow reflects real-world checking practices.

The solution is currently being used in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates, with plans for a full production rollout globally over time.

Addressing complex documentary trade challenges

Documentary trade at HSBC involves a highly complex, document-intensive operation, processing over one million documentary presentations each year, including documentary credits and collections.

Each presentation can extend into hundreds of pages, containing a wide range of structured and unstructured data points requiring extraction and review.

The complexity increases further as documentary credit checks often include additional conditions unique to each transaction and its underlying commercial contract. Consequently, documents and checking requirements can vary significantly from one transaction to another.

A single presentation can take hours to process, creating high operational demands, particularly during peak activity periods.

Smart Checking addresses these challenges by using a combination of AI technologies and trade expertise to create a more streamlined checking process. The solution employs AI to extract and classify information from documents, with advanced AI models converting complex and inconsistent documentation into structured data. This helps information enter the process in an organised and searchable format.

An AI reasoning engine, backed by a knowledge graph, handles information interpretation and documentary credit checks. This method ensures consistent trade checking while maintaining the necessary expertise and controls in trade finance, ultimately delivering explainable and auditable results.