“Let’s chat”, the new whitepaper by everis that analyses the transformation of the conversational banking sector

This document provides an expert vision on the 7 trends that are leading its development.

The relationship model between banks and their customers is undergoing an evolution process. The progressive closure of branches, remarkable generational differences between older and younger generation client profiles and obviously the impact of the pandemic have created a new ecosystem where conversational banking comes up as one of the main method of communication between both parts, and also the user experience will be enriched in the financial services industry.

Conversational banking, based on virtual assistants that allow either party to initiate a conversation, can help with both basic, every day functions (providing a current account balance, reporting on the price of a share, etc.) and with more complex financial consulting and management. 

everis, and NTT DATA Company, has identified the 7 trends that have a higher influence on the adoption of conversational assistants in the financial sector:

1. 1- Managing costs in the contact center
2. 2- The interaction between humans and machines (hybrid customer-service model)
3. 3- New relationship models based on the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
4. 4- Proactive financial advisor of personal finances 
5. 5- Voice biometrics to tackle fraud
6. 6- Machine Learning to enhance the virtual assistance cognitive capabilities  
7. 7- A bot-of-bots and many specialized bots to improve the customer service
8.  

Fabio Distaso, Head of Conversational Banking at everis, highlights that “the banking sector is facing the challenge and need to step up and forge closer relationship with their customers. To do so, it is key to design and implement new interaction models that offer a simple, quick, effective and responsive to customers’ demands, as well as providing new alternatives in terms of cost control, personal finance management, etc. In this sense, virtual assistants play a key role in the future of the sector."

However, there is still a long way to go before this tool is widely adopted and become a recurrent element in the relationship between banks and their customers. Its speed of implementation will depend on the development and application of new technologies to optimize banks’ costs and resources. Besides, all this should not lead to a decrease in the level of the customer trust, but it must bring security and the added value of customized services.