SINGAPORE, July 18 (Reuters) - Citigroup ( C/PN ) and

Singapore-based financial technology firm Ant International have

launched a pilot program using artificial intelligence to help

clients better manage foreign exchange risk, the companies said

on Friday.

The program combines Citi's Fixed FX Rates solution, which

is widely used by the banks' clients in sectors such as

e-commerce, with Ant International's Falcon Time-Series

Transformer model, an AI forecasting tool that helps businesses

reduce hedging FX costs, according to a joint statement.

The pilot program, developed initially for aviation clients,

has already been used in live transactions with a major Asian

airline able to reduce cost in its fixed FX hedging for online

ticket sales, the companies said.

"The 30% hedging cost savings Ant International has achieved

for the pilot airline customer shows the cost efficiency that

can be achieved with AI-enabled FX hedging," Kelvin Li, general

manager of Platform Tech at Ant International, said.

"We are excited to expand the solution with Citi to serve

more businesses and industries," he added.

Ant International is an affiliate of China's fin tech giant

Ant Group, founded by billionaire Jack Ma. It provides global

digital payment, digitisation and financial technology and has

operations across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin

America.

The launch came six months after Citi began rolling out new

AI tools to be used by employees in eight countries, providing

such access to 140,000 employees globally.

Large banks have been using AI tools in more targeted ways.

Morgan Stanley ( MS ) has a chatbot that helps financial

advisors in interactions with clients, and Bank of America's

virtual assistant Erica focuses on day-to-day transactions of

retail clients.