Ant International has announced a partnership with Barclays to improve treasury operations and foreign exchange (FX) risk management for global businesses. The collaboration brings together Barclays’ banking expertise with Ant International’s proprietary AI-driven Time-Series Transformer (TST) FX Model, aiming to reduce costs and improve forecasting accuracy.
AI model boosts FX forecasting capabilities
At the core of this partnership is the Time-Series Transformer AI FX Model, developed by Ant International. The model, which is based on transformer architecture and trained using over two billion parameters, can forecast patterns in time series data such as cashflow and FX exposure. It integrates advanced pre-training and supervised fine-tuning frameworks to continually improve its predictions.
Currently, the TST Model delivers forecasts on an hourly, daily, and weekly basis with more than 90% accuracy. This high level of precision allows Ant International to better predict trading volumes and reduce excessive hedging and risk premiums typically charged by banks. As a result, the company has been able to lower its overall FX costs.
Barclays has incorporated the TST Model into its own FX platform, BARX NetFX, which is widely used in the e-commerce and payment sectors. The integration is part of Barclays’ wider FX Automation strategy aimed at digitalising workflows and optimising hedging processes for its clients.
Improving cost efficiency and FX pricing
The collaboration allows Barclays to deliver more accurate FX hedging by leveraging the TST Model’s forecasts. In turn, Ant International can offer competitive and more stable FX rates to its business clients, particularly for major currencies like the euro and US dollar. The firms have already completed an initial batch of intra-group FX transactions, with early results showing significant cost savings.
“Ant International has been a valued and long-standing partner of Barclays, and we were thrilled to work together on this innovative solution,” said Ben Parkinson, Head of Global Fintech & FX Automation Sales at Barclays. “This collaboration reflects the strong relationship and mutual trust between our teams. Their state-of-the-art AI model has improved the accuracy of forecasting cash flows and helped us optimise the FX hedging process.”
Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech at Ant International, also highlighted the broader value of the partnership. “The collaboration with Barclays on our Time Series Transformer Model is an important milestone in our ongoing journey to help treasuries optimise their FX strategies. The results that we have achieved by combining Barclays’ advanced banking capabilities with Ant International’s innovative solutions demonstrate how technology can enhance the way businesses manage their global liquidity, by enabling more efficient FX transactions.”
Scaling AI solutions for global treasury needs
The companies plan to expand the application of the AI-powered FX solution to support more currency pairings and cater to a wider range of business needs. This comes at a time when cross-border transactions are expected to surpass US$290 trillion globally by 2030, highlighting the growing importance of efficient and secure FX management.
Pushkaraj Gumaste, Head of Corporate Banking, Asia Pacific and Middle East at Barclays, said: “This collaboration is a strong testament to how Barclays is dedicated to evolving alongside our partners, by harnessing our complementary strengths to enhance our offerings and deliver more impactful solutions. It’s a perfect example of how we can make cross-border business more seamless and efficient for our clients, while deepening the value we bring to their global operations.”
As demand for digital transformation grows within the treasury functions of global businesses, the partnership between Ant International and Barclays signals a shift towards more intelligent, data-driven FX management practices, supported by AI technologies.
