* Citigroup ( C ) is using AI to speed internal processes

* Bank is sharply reducing time of document review to

open an account

* Citi is in the midst of a plan to limit the use of tech

contractors

By Tatiana Bautzer

NEW YORK, April 8 (Reuters) - Citigroup ( C ) is using

artificial intelligence to speed up account openings and the

retirement of old software, the U.S. bank's head of technology,

Tim Ryan, said, as the firm pushes to improve productivity.

U.S. banks are embracing AI, the biggest technological upheaval

to the world economy since the internet, to boost productivity

and, in some cases, cut jobs.

"We still have legacy systems, but after the tech

investments we've made, we are in a much better place," Ryan

said in an interview. "AI helps migrate data from legacy

systems, automate coding and test more and faster."

AI is also being used to speed client onboarding. A system

to process documents has shaved an hour off the time required to

review documents before opening an account in the U.S. for the

services division, to 15 minutes, Ryan added.

CITI RELYING LESS ON CONTRACTORS

Ryan joined Citigroup ( C ) from PwC less than two years ago and

is revamping the tech division to rely as much as possible on

employees rather than external contractors.

Ryan told staff a year ago the bank was planning to dramatically

reduce its reliance on information technology contractors and

hire thousands of employees for IT, Reuters reported.

The lender has sharply increased its investments in

technology over the last five years to comply with regulatory

requests, among other reasons.

Citigroup ( C ) is under two consent orders issued in 2020 by the

Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the

Currency that required the bank to increase risk management

controls and fix regulatory data inaccuracies and governance.

A year ago, contractors made up around 50% of Citi's

technology workforce and the bank planned to reduce that to 20%.

The bank is "halfway through" the plan to reduce the use of

contractors, Ryan said.

He said the bank hired more software engineers and has a

tech workforce of around 50,000 people. Citi wants to rely more

on internal staff as it increases investments in the development

and deployment of AI tools and wants to implement consistent AI

tools across the company.

Citigroup ( C ) is choosing critical internal processes for review

and automation. Among the first 50 processes are client and

employee onboarding, as well as some "know your customer"

policies.