Chiba Bank at Snowflake World Tour Tokyo
The Snowflake World Tour stopped by in Tokyo on September 11 & 12, with some interesting Finance case studies on the agenda. This presentation details the successful project by Chiba Bank, one of Japan's largest regional banks, which has embarked on an ambitious digital transformation (DX) initiative aimed at delivering the "Ultimate Customer Experience."
At the heart of this strategy is the development of a modern data and AI platform powered by Snowflake. This new foundation is already enabling sophisticated one-to-one marketing, streamlining internal operations, and empowering employees with advanced data capabilities.
Tangible achievements include the successful deployment of 15 distinct AI models for customer personalization and a major project designed to save 150,000 work hours through AI-driven automation. This comprehensive initiative is projected to generate a remarkable 30 billion JPY (approximately $200M USD) in synergy over the next five years.
1. Context: Chiba Bank's Corporate Strategy
To understand the significance of this project, it is important to recognize Chiba Bank's position as a major financial institution with over 4,150 employees and assets exceeding 21.7 trillion JPY, operating within an 18-company group.
The bank's guiding purpose is deeply rooted in its community, aiming "to create a local community where each individual's thoughts can be more fully realized." This mission translates into a clear strategic vision: to become an "Engagement Bank Group." The cornerstone of this vision is the bank's mid-term plan, which is laser-focused on the "Creation of the Ultimate Customer Experience."
This goal requires leveraging data to deliver highly personalized proposals and services across a seamless blend of physical, remote, and digital channels, providing the primary motivation for their investment in a modern data and AI infrastructure.
2. The Solution: A Modern Data & AI Platform on Snowflake
To bring their vision to life, Chiba Bank recognized the need to dismantle data silos and establish a unified foundation for analytics and marketing. The solution was a new data platform architected with Snowflake as the central, unified Data Warehouse (DWH) and Treasure Data serving as the Customer Data Platform (CDP), effectively consolidating information from every customer touchpoint.
Snowflake was specifically chosen for its combination of high performance and cost-efficiency, its near-zero maintenance burden—which freed up user departments to focus on value creation—and its flexible, pay-per-use scalability. Furthermore, its secure data sharing capabilities were crucial for fostering collaboration across the bank's 18 group companies.
Chiba Bank is extending its use of the platform beyond traditional data warehousing, actively leveraging the full Snowflake Data Cloud. This includes using Snowpark for advanced data engineering and AI model development and Streamlit for rapidly building and deploying interactive data applications, creating a single, integrated hub for all their data, analytics, and AI workloads.
3. Project Achievements & Key Results
The bank's investment in its DX and AI initiatives, powered by the new data platform, is already delivering significant results across the organization. A primary success has been the enhancement of customer digital touchpoints, where the bank has deployed 15 distinct AI models, including an advanced "Needs Rank Model," to deliver highly personalized marketing, with a projected synergy of 60 million JPY for fiscal year 2025.
Internally, the impact is equally significant. A major AI-driven business process improvement project is underway, targeting 24 internal workflows with the ambitious goal of saving 150,000 work hours annually and generating 420 million JPY in synergy.
The benefits extend to their corporate clients, as the new platform has already identified 1,200 potential business customers for targeted, value-added proposals. Underpinning all of this is a profound cultural shift, driven by a bank-wide AI upskilling program that has provided foundational training to all employees and advanced data science education to a core group of 100 specialists.
4. Future Vision: Chibagin DX 4.0
Looking ahead, Chiba Bank is already planning the next phase of its evolution, dubbed "Chibagin DX 4.0." This vision involves extending the Snowflake-based data foundation to all 18 group companies, creating a fully integrated data ecosystem.
The ultimate goal is to create a "new form of banking," transforming into a proactive "Consulting Bank" that offers data-driven advice and a seamless "Concierge Bank" that handles transactions effortlessly. Central to this future will be the continued use of Snowflake as a single, unified platform for all AI and machine learning initiatives, accelerating the pace of innovation and the creation of unprecedented customer value.
Norbert Gehrke
