As you well know, even before the onset of the recent pandemic, the transition from “brick-and-mortar” to digital banking was well underway. For financial institutions, having effective web and mobile banking platforms were no longer a luxury, but a necessity. With the recent stay-at-home orders, people generally limiting their amount of public exposure, and heightened importance of managing finances thanks to the volatility of the economy and workforce, digital banking capabilities have never been more important.

To remain competitive in today’s digital world, it’s critical for financial institutions to convert consumers beyond transactional activities such as checking balances, reviewing recent spending, and paying bills. These actions don’t differentiate one institution from another. How does a financial institution develop a strong digital relationship with customers without completely restructuring their customer service functions?

The advancement in Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing every industry, including retail banking. This technology has the power to alter the relationship between financial institutions and their customers in ways that weren’t possible before. Thanks to these advancements in Conversational AI capabilities, financial institutions have the ability to interact with their customers through the most natural medium – conversation – better known as Conversational Banking.

Conversational Banking is the ability to engage with a financial institution through natural language via interfaces like IOT voice devices, messaging platforms or telephone systems. Conversational Banking lets users access their financial information through a financial institution’s web or mobile banking platforms as well as channels like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, SMS, Facebook Messenger, and smart IVR, humanizing interactions between a financial institution and its consumers via the platforms they prefer.

Conversational Banking empowers financial institutions to go beyond simple reactive interactions and instead generate proactive interactions that engage consumers on meaningful money matters while creating efficiencies that reduce dependency on the financial institution’s resources.

Virtual Financial Assistants, sometimes known as chatbots, are often how financial institutions are benefiting from Conversational Banking. Powered by AI, machine learning, and natural language processing, contextually aware Virtual Financial Assistants can be programmed to ask and answer questions in familiar, conversational language. This two-way interaction provides a more intuitive experience that lets users get fast answers about their finances.

As more financial institutions move from POC to Production, they must have a strategy to tap into the real potential of Conversational Banking – TRUST-BUILDING DIALOGUE. 

Download Abe.ai’s The Next Generation of Conversational Banking to learn how financial institutions can leverage conversational banking to:

• Benefit from investing in consumer financial health.
• Create customer-centric trust-building dialogue through a Virtual Financial Assistant.
• Make the shift from basic transactions to engaging interactions.
• Gather insights into the complexities of customers’ financial lives.

Abe.ai  is an artificial intelligence company that builds virtual assistant products & infrastructure for the finance industry.