Bank of America Merrill Lynch has launched a new fintech solution that brings together artificial intelligence, machine learning and optical character recognition to help companies match incoming payments with invoices.

Under the name Intelligent Receivables, the solution is developed by HighRadius, a US-based fintech company. It is targeted at large or complex companies where the remittance information is either missing or received separately from the payment, which according to the bank is a source of big frustration to its clients.

Using AI and other new technologies, Intelligent Receivables can help these companies improve their straight through reconciliation (STR) of incoming payments and post their receivables faster.

It does so in four steps: first, the solution identifies payers and associates their payments to remittances that are received separately. Second, it extracts remittance data from emails, email attachments, electronic data interchange and payer web portals. Third, it uses this enriched remittance data to match payments to open receivables. Finally, it creates a receivables posting file that the client uploads to their enterprise resource planning system.

According to Rodney Gardner, the bank’s head of receivables in global transaction services, the solution sets “a new bar in accounts receivable reconciliation and payment matching” and the bank ultimately hopes it can help companies reduce costs, decrease days sales outstanding and improve cash forecasting and their end-customer experience.

Hilani Kerr, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s head of North America corporate global transaction services adds that the bank is looking to work with more fintech companies going forward, “to bring more innovations like Intelligent Receivables to our clients, and create practical applications of new technology that will help them achieve greater efficiency and cost savings”.

The solution is now available in the US and Canada only, but will be launched in other countries and regions later this year.