EXCLUSIVE— Experian DataLabs, the innovation center for credit bureau Experian, is experimenting with a voice banking feature, Eric Haller, executive vice president and global head, Experian DataLabs, told Bank Innovation.

The feature would allow consumers to make routine financial transactions using only their voice, over voice devices like Amazon’s Alexa speaker or a Google Home, Haller told Bank Innovation.

“Voice banking is something we’re looking into,” Haller said.

The feature is “an R&D project” at the moment, he said, adding that as such, it does not have an official release date.

The feature can be thought of as an extension of the company’s “Text for Credit” feature which was rolled out in July 2017, and allows customers to sign up for credit at a retail store (for instance) in real-time without entering a large amount of information.

The “text” feature is currently available in four countries, including Brazil, and should be made live with a U.S. partner at some point, Haller said, though he could not name the partner.

The use cases for voice would be slightly different, Haller said, though the feature comes as voice is growing more popular. It will take a while for voice to become a mainstream way of interacting, Haller stated, though when asked, he speculated that it will completely replace text, keyboards, and other forms of communication in banking and commerce in “about three to five years.”

This would also require significant advances in technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and identity verification, Haller noted. Identity verification at the moment “is very rules-driven,” Haller said, something that will have to change as artificial intelligence and voice devices advance in popularity.

“I think it will take at least three to five years, because you have to think in terms of [the popularity of] voice devices,” Haller said.

Want to continue the conversation? Join Bank Innovation’s Telegram here.