Banking On Voice Assistants
Leaving chatbots behind, Intelligent Voice Assistants are increasingly taking over the banking industry Our world will be populated with eight billion Intelligent Voice Assistants (IVAs) by 2023. With smart TVs, smart speakers and other wearables becoming popular, various industry sectors are leveraging IVAs to enhance customer experience. Among them is the Banking, Financial Services and […]
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Leaving chatbots behind, Intelligent Voice Assistants are increasingly taking over the banking industry
Our world will be populated with eight billion Intelligent Voice Assistants (IVAs) by 2023. With smart TVs, smart speakers and other wearables becoming popular, various industry sectors are leveraging IVAs to enhance customer experience. Among them is the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BSFI) sector.
A UBS Evidence Lab research points that the banking sector has been one of the fastest AI adopters. The research survey revealed that over 75 per cent of banks implement AI strategies and most of them leverage popular voice assistants like Siri and Alexa. Global banks like HDFC and JP Morgan use Alexa and Paypal uses Siri.
Driven by experience-as-a-service, the banking sector worked on empowering digitisation to gain a competitive edge. Revolutionary innovations with the combination of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, data analysis, and cloud computing has created a niche market for itself in the BSFI sector.
Gone are the days when IVR customer services and interactions on mobile screens were considered futuristic. IVAs have improved and personalised user experience as they offer intelligent, proactive assistance.
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A Closer Look into Banking with IVAs
Although Nuance was the pioneer, Siri was the first IVA to support banking systems and help customers interact with financial and bank commerce. They offered luxury services, while executing functions like digital transactions, payments, loan processing and deposits without engaging in personal interactions.
Turning Point
Siri existed, since 2010, as a standalone IVA for iPhone users. When Alexa came in 2014, several technology analysts believed that the use of IVA would be a fad but when Bank of America launched Erica in 2016, the importance of IVAs surged with unexpected opportunities. As millions of people used their phone for banking, Bank of America knew what algorithms should be programmed in Erica for a smooth operation. Erica could observe, gather data, analyse patterns and make statements. She was a customer’s proactive voice assistant.
With the liberty to scan the customer’s financial data, she could also offer advice and financial assistance about expenditure and investment. Taking chatbots to the next level, IVAs streamlined and strengthened banking experience for customers worldwide.
Every bank’s vision is to empower their customers with a seamless experience, and experts say IVAs are the game-changers. According to a KMPG report, several banking components will be taken over by IVAs and data will be the core centre of technology partnerships in this AI set up.
“Hey Alexa, what is my current bank balance?”
“Hey Siri, block my ATM card”
With services of information, transaction, and service being aggressively handled by the walled garden IVAs, banks have also invested in personal IVAs that can help improve their customer experience and service.
One of the early banks to launch intelligent voice banking was ING Netherlands with Inge, in 2014. It helped customers with their queries, from account balance to nearest branch locations. Erica was another IVA that entered the banking sphere with the Bank of America in 2018. It led to an uptick of 14 million users. UK bank Santander launched their application allowing users to have a conversation with the AI and make payments with voice commands.
Middle East IVA Operations
In 2016, Emirates NBD debuted EVA, an IVA for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) banking. The first in the region, EVA understands both English and Arabic and offers dozens of services ranging from account transactions, card activation to salary credit announcements.
The UAE-based Mashreq Bank partnered with Apple’s Siri through the launch of their mobile banking service in 2016. Mashreq embraced voice assistance for an easy and interactive money transfer system for their customers to improve customer experience.
The following year, the Turkish Bank Garanti introduced MIA. Similar to any other IVA technology, Garanti offered the convenience of conversational banking for its customers. MIA could offer several services, including currency transfers, produce exchange rates, and transfer funds. What’s interesting is that MIA learns, analyses her customers’ habits and anticipates user needs. The European Financial Management Association (EFMA) recognised MIA as an essential innovation transforming banking experiences.
A Hiccup
Banks have leveraged IVA for years. With the rapid digitisation due to the COVID-19 crisis, contactless IVA technology has been increasingly adopted by the BSFI sector. However, reports reflect that only a limited number of people use voice-activated devices for their banking purposes. Banking executives cannot ignore this trend.
People readily embrace IVA when it comes to requests like playing music, make phone calls, ask random questions and even help with shopping lists, but only some trust IVAs to support their financial needs.
There are two main reasons for this distrust. One, banks do not update their customers about the new developments of their IVAs. Many continue to think that IVAs can only check their account balance and review transactions, as was in 2016.
According to a Fiserv study, two-thirds of customers either do not know that voice banking is possible or do not believe in it, bringing us to the second reason for distrust. There is a lack of positive and reassuring awareness. Experts recommend banks create a marketing strategy that promotes the advantages and positive impact of trusting IVAs.
Meanwhile, bank executives continue to focus on creating seamless IVA experiences for their customers, which benefits the banks as well.
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Availability Anytime
Conventional customer care and support is restricted to daytime working hours and hardly at all during the weekends. Moreover, increasing staff support can cause a financial crunch. With IVAs, round the clock service is possible and can be well within the financial budget. Experts reckon that they can cut costs up to 30 per cent.
Scaling
In recent times, primarily due to the pandemic, there has been an unanticipated record-high customer support calls from frustrated account holders. Successfully diminishing long waiting call lines are IVAs, with conversational banking. They can solve over 80 per cent of customer queries, leaving the complex situations to be handled by human resources. With faster responses, customer experience and satisfaction is also sorted.
Personalisation
With no hassle of marketing and sales calls or email listings, banks have the luxury to market their products and services through IVA. Similarly, customers do not require a trip to the bank to know their latest updates and initiatives. They are also exempted from random bank calls with offers and updates. The IVA handles everything at the customers’ disposal.
Clear Goals, Exceptional Results
Conversational banking can reinvent the banking environment, but working on awareness and feature updates is crucial. Experts warn banks to not rush into the establishment of IVA support as one wrong result can amplify customer distrust. A well-researched strategy, with clear customer benefit and improved customer service goals, is crucial. Technology experts suggest banks work on necessary skills, create awareness and acceptance.
While the BSFI industry deepens its IVA investments, voice commerce is expected to grow over $80 billion by 2023. Not surprisingly, IVAs are here to revolutionise banking in a way not seen since the start of mobile phone banking. There might hardly be a need for more than one brick and mortar bank in any region with time.
