LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - HSBC has appointed David Rice as its first chief AI officer, the British bank said on Monday, as it seeks to cut costs and improve performance by increasing the use of generative AI technology across its businesses worldwide.

HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery has highlighted AI as the key to the bank's wider strategic goal of increasing its return on tangible equity to above 17% for 2026-2028, via savings from automating and streamlining its processes.

* Rice was previously the chief operating officer for HSBC'sCorporate and Institutional Banking business. * Banks worldwide are trying to harness AI to improve taskssuch as coding, fraud detection, and credit applications. * "If you ask me where is the biggest investment going intonew technology today, it is definitely going into generativeAI," Elhedery told investors on a conference call on February25. * Having a formal head of AI is relatively unusual for bigglobal banks. Many rivals make AI responsibilities part of achief technology officer's wider remit. * HSBC has not disclosed how many jobs it may cut as aresult of AI improvements. Bloomberg News reported earlier thismonth the bank could ultimately shed 20,000 roles, saying theplans were at an early stage and no decisions had been taken.

(Reporting by Lawrence White; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Barbara Lewis)