First Global Examples of Banking Chatbot – II –

We continue to explore the pioneering banking chatbot all over the world.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo is one of the banks that has started to offer a chatbot to its customers in 2017. By chatting with the artificial intelligence-based bot running through Facebook Messenger, it is possible to access account balance, account history, spending information, and nearest ATM information.

At the beginning of 2017, Wells Fargo evaluated the effectiveness of the chatbot service and the customer experience by a pilot conducted with a customer group of 5,000 and the employees of the bank.

In order to engage with generation Y, using artificial intelligence in applications other than chatbot is among the priorities of the bank. Positioning AI at the heart of its payments, virtual solutions and innovation strategies, Wells Fargo’s Head of Innovation Group Steve Ellis says that  the next step is to revolutionize the end-to-end customer experience. Ellis said,”Thanks to data analytics, we are at stage of personalization that, instead of saying ‘People like you behave like this’, now we are capable of saying ‘We know you and what you want personally’” 

CaxiaBank – Gina & Neo 

imaginBank, CaixaBank’s mobile initiative, offers its customers a different experience thanks to Gina, the first chatbot in Spain in early 2017. By  imagineBank, the bank aims to focus on the generation Y and Gina, offers services through Facebook Messenger. Gina answers questions about products and services that imaginBank offers. In addition, it answers customers’ questions regarding the Bank’s wide range of promotional offers on shopping, entertainment and culture & arts. The customers can ask their category and location-based questions about more than 100 offers through voice or text. In addition to the exact offer, Gina also provides the next best offer when necessary. The chatbot also sends notifications at a specified frequency. Another feature of Gina is that the customers can split a credit card payment when the customer requests it via writing or speaking.  Gina instantly identifies which transaction is suitable for the installments and shows it to the customer. After customer’s choice, the expenditure is splittit and the result of the transaction is reported to the customer.

Gina is not the only artificial intelligence-based service within the Caxia Group; previously, Caxia had provided foreign trade consultancy to its employees. Within the scope of this service, foreign trade experts’ regulation-related questions are answered. In addition, prior to imaginBank, CaxiaBank has previously offered a bot via Twitter, with the function of displaying the locations of its branches / ATMs and telling the price in the stock market.

CaxiaBank also launched a brand new chatbot in 2019: Neo. This new virtual assistant answers customers’ questions via voice or chat through  CaxiaBankNow, CaxiaBank’s digital banking channels (web and mobile), Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

Santander

Another bank that has launched a banking chatbot in early 2017 is Santander UK. The bank provides this services to a certain group of customers through the mobile application of the bank by voice recognition technology, providing information about account balance and spending habits, alerting for account movements, making payments and money transfers, receiving lost card report  and answering frequently asked questions.

Swedbank – Nina

With the virtual assistant Nina, which Swedbank launched in 2014 and empowered by artificial intelligence in 2016, the bank transformed its customer service into a robot-human collaboration model. As Nina answers simple customer questions quickly and efficiently via the website, bank managers say that the call center agents can focus on a more sales-oriented role. Having an average of 40,000 conversations per month, Nina is able to hand over the customer to a customer representatives when human interaction is required. By Nina, who has natural language skills, Swedbank says that it has improved the customer experience and ensured the resolution of  81% of the customer queries at the first point of contact.

At Swedbank, where 75% of customers make transactions on mobile and internet, Nina also guides these customers on channel usage. Call center agents can also use Nina’s knowledge to respond customer inquiries and requests faster.

SEB – Aida

Another Scandinavian bank that gets help from a chatbot for customer service is SEB. SEB’s chatbot, Aida, launched in 2017, is an artificial intelligence-based customer representative. SEB’s broad spectrum of customer data enables Aida to be better trained to respond quickly. Some of its functionalities are opening an account, requesting a card, organizing meetings and providing branch information.

Prior to Aida, SEB had launched Amelia, a chatbot providing technical support to its employees, that enabled 4,000 conversations with 700 employees in the first 3 weeks.

Nordea – Nova

The Norwegian bank, Nordea, is one of the Scandinavian banks that has launched its chatbot for customer service in 2017. Nova is used by Nordea Life & Pensions, Nordea’s subsidiary in life insurance and retirement, to improve customer experience by providing quick and relevant answers to customer questions. Trained with 250 intents, Nova can either answer the customer or immediately hand over the customer to the presentative without interrupting the experience in case of an insufficient response.

Nordea uses artificial intelligence for standard customer questions, aiming at a model where customer representatives are focused on more proactive and advice-oriented businesses. To emphasize this point, the bank says, “We remove the robot from human”. Nordea’s future plans for Nova include making it an end-to-end digital experience that nurtures customers and employees with both knowledge and advice.

DBS – POSB Chat Banking

In 2017, DBS, the largest bank in Southeast Asia, launched the region’s first banking chatbot on its mobile bank “POSB digibank”. Branded as “POSB Chat Banking”, it has functions such as answering more than a thousand questions from customers, reporting account balances, tracking account transactions, money transferring and paying credit card debts. It is stated that the bot answers 82% of customer inquiries via POSB digibank.

In addition to POSB digibank, POSB Chat Banking also serves via Facebook Messenger. Creators of the project say that “If you ask a customer representative, how much you spent for grocery in the last month, it will take a while to get an answer, but the bot will respond to it instantly.” The bot has the ability to answer questions like “Show my last 10 spendings ”or “How much did I spend outdoors in the first week of January?” Besides, another chatbot called “digibot” answers the frequently asked questions via the banks’s web page. Digibot triggers the relevant process within the bank’s system, when a sales opportunity occurs during a chat.

To reach the first blog on this topic: First Global Examples of Banking Chatbots -I-