0453 GMT - Commonwealth Bank is seen at Citi as having the best foundations of any major Australian lender when it comes to becoming a successful adopter of artificial intelligence. Analyst Thomas Strong tells clients in a note that Australia's largest bank appears to be ahead of rivals NAB, Westpac and ANZ on infrastructure, data, talent and culture. The latter two lenders could be hamstrung in the near term by their work to resolve legacy technology issues, Strong says. He thinks that Australian banks should benefit from AI due to the scale of their data, their dominant market position, and their narrow product sets. Analysis of offshore peers suggests potential for AI deployment to lift local lenders' pretax profits by 3%-5% across several years. (stuart.condie@wsj.com)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 21, 2026 00:53 ET (04:53 GMT)
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