Mr. Michael Zerbs reports

SCOTIABANK ACCELERATES ITS CLOUD ADOPTION STRATEGY THROUGH AN EXPANDED PARTNERSHIP WITH GOOGLE CLOUD

Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) has expanded its partnership with Google Cloud, naming it the enterprise cloud platform of choice for the next phase of the bank's cloud acceleration journey. The bank will leverage Google Cloud technology to enhance client and employee experience, strengthen bank security, and adopt new technologies, like generative AI (artificial intelligence), more quickly. This announcement builds on Scotiabank's strategic partnership with Google Cloud, extending its cloud-first commitment and accelerating its global data and analytics strategy.

"Scotiabank's partnership with Google Cloud reinforces the bank's commitment to investing in strategic growth initiatives that make it easy to do business with us," said Michael Zerbs, group head, technology and operations, Scotiabank. "We have an aggressive goal of moving the majority of the bank's information and systems to the cloud over the next three years, maximizing the productivity of our business and the safety of our information, further demonstrating Scotiabank's investment in the long-term success of our clients, shareholders and employees."

"Google Cloud has a long history of working with Scotiabank, and we are proud to expand our partnership at such a pivotal time for the bank," says Matt Renner, president, global field organization, Google Cloud. "Scotiabank has demonstrated its commitment to transforming their operations with Google-powered cloud and AI technologies, creating more engaging client experiences, with safety and privacy at the core."

Scotiabank continues to prioritize innovation, digitization and modernization of its operations. The bank is already seeing the added value in the expanded partnership with Google Cloud, including:

• Building with Vertex AI, leveraging the same tools Google uses to deploy and manage AI securely and at scale;
• Moving its contact centres to Google Cloud's contact centre AI (CCAI) technology, unlocking the ability to better understand and serve client needs;
• An improved mobile experience with greater platform stability and reliability for clients;
• Developing the first cloud-based client data hub for Scotiabank's wealth management business with a robust security and compliance framework to better protect and govern bank data;
• LLM-powered (large language model) chat bot summarization that empowers live agents with instant context, enabling seamless chat-bot-to-human handoffs and reducing client resolution times;
• An enhanced employee experience with LLM-powered question and answer and search, providing access to tailored knowledge and streamlining workflows.

"Through our work with Google Cloud, we are bringing efficiencies across the business -- streamlining processes, migrating platforms, modernizing applications and data, and accelerating the delivery of enhanced capabilities," said Aris Bogdaneris, group head, Canadian banking, Scotiabank. "These efforts will help to further enable Scotiabank's vision of being our clients' most trusted financial partner and help us adapt more quickly, innovate safely and meet our transformational business objectives."

Scotiabank's long partnership with Google Cloud has enabled Scotiabank to create a more personal and predictive banking experience for its clients, including powering its award-winning chat bot. The bank's chat bot continues to elevate the bank's digital offerings and highlights the value of AI technology to enhance the digital client experience.

Learn more about this work at Google Cloud Next, where Grace Lee, senior vice-president and chief data and analytics officer at Scotiabank, will be participating on a panel on AI for banking.

At its investor day in December, 2023, Scotiabank introduced its refreshed enterprise strategy, outlining its vision for a strong future for the bank, focused on delivering sustainable, profitable growth through four strategic pillars: Growing and scaling in priority markets, earning primary client relationships, making it easy to do business with the bank, and winning as one team.

About Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank)

Scotiabank's vision is to be its clients' most trusted financial partner to deliver sustainable, profitable growth and maximize total shareholder return. Guided by its purpose, "for every future," Scotiabank helps its clients, their families and their communities achieve success through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With assets of approximately $1.4-trillion (as at Jan. 31, 2024), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.