Ant International Upgrade FX Risk Management Model

Technology provider Ant International has released an updated version of its Falcon Time Series Transformer (TST) model, which is, the firm says, designed to deliver more accurate forecasting in real-world FX risk management of cross-border payments.

The AI-driven model differs from large language models, Ant International says, because it handles continuously changing numerical data, including transaction amounts, account balances, settlement flows, and currency positions. “For a global payment institution, these forecasts directly impact capital efficiency,” the firm states, adding the value of AI prediction lies not just in ‘calculating more accurately’ but in helping businesses know precisely when they need funds, how much they need, and in which currencies.

“This forecasting capability is equally critical for foreign exchange management,” the firm continues. “An airline may collect ticket revenues in multiple currencies while needing to pay for aircraft leases, airport fees, and operating costs in different currencies. Companies typically use foreign exchange hedging to reduce currency fluctuation risk, but that requires them to determine how much of each currency they will receive and need. If forecasts are too high, they may over-hedge; if too low, they leave themselves exposed to foreign exchange risk.”

The firm further explains that while traditional forecasting systems typically build separate models for different tasks, TST foundational models take a different approach by learning common patterns such as cycles, trends, seasonality, and sudden shifts, from data across finance, retail, energy, travel, and economics. Though different industries operate in separate sphere, the company observes the underlying temporal structures often share commonalities.  

Existing clients, Barclays Citi, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered, have signed up for Falcon TST 2.0, Ant says, revealing that Barclays has integrated it into its FX hedging platform, BARX NetFX, while Citi combines FalconTST with its own fixed FX rates solution, and Standard Chartered uses the model alongside its Scale FX system as part of both sides’ participation in the PathFin.ai programme of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

“Large language models have shown how AI can understand and generate information,” observes Jiang-Ming Yang, chief innovation officer, Ant International. “FalconTST is about another capability that businesses increasingly need: understanding how the world changes over time, and anticipating what comes next. For us, the value of AI is not simply achieving a better forecasting score, but turning that predictive intelligence into real decisions – how much liquidity to prepare, how to manage FX exposure, and how to allocate capital more efficiently.”