Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE)
BCIE automated payment instruction processing by implementing a solution that extracts data from PDFs and images to generate structured responses, reducing manual errors and accelerating invoice and payment approvals. The new system not only streamlined operations but also improved user experience by simplifying workflows, minimizing repetitive tasks, and providing faster, more reliable access to information.
Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE) plays a crucial role in Central America's integration and development.
Headquartered in Tegucigalpa (Honduras), the multilateral financial institution promotes the integration and balanced economic and social development of its member countries.
While working closely with BCIE, we identified a high-impact opportunity to apply AI to their payment instruction process—an area constrained by manual handling of unstructured data (PDFs and images), which leads to errors and bottlenecks.
This manual approach often led to data entry errors, reconciliation challenges, and approval delays, consuming valuable staff time and limiting scalability as payment volumes increased.
The solution we co-created with BCIE leverages Microsoft Azure services to automate the intake and processing of payment instruction documents within the bank’s Portal. Now, documents are uploaded through the bank’s portal and automatically scanned, interpreted, and validated using Azure’s AI capabilities—ensuring faster, more accurate processing with minimal human intervention.
One of the key success factors was separating data extraction from interpretation, which gave us both precision and flexibility. Designing the solution in clear phases and involving stakeholders early helped us manage risk and stay aligned.
The project ultimately showed that with the right collaboration and architecture, AI can streamline high-stakes banking operations without disrupting essential workflows.
As a result of the project, the bank automated the ingestion of payment instruction data into its Portal, making an already operational process faster and, most importantly, significantly more reliable. Beyond time savings, by minimizing manual intervention, the solution ensures accurate, consistent payment instructions, which are essential to the correct execution of client payments. This reduced rework, operational friction, and the risk of failed or incorrect payments—allowing the bank to operate with greater reliability, control, and peace of mind.
