How to Evolve Out of Ancient Banking Services: What Processes Are Worth Automating Today?
Modern technologies will change the financial market beyond recognition. Today it is hard to find banks that do not use the latest software and equipment for customer service to ensure high transaction speed and information exchange. However, if you look further into the future, you can see that new automation tools will leave no trace of the familiar banking system. Fully automated systems will be used for working with customers as well as for performing lending and payment operations. The experts and top managers of large businesses shared with us their thoughts on when the Stone Age of banking services would end.
Sergey Pavlov, Artezio CTO:
“In the banking industry, it is difficult to surprise anyone with robotic tools for individual work with clients. Most services for banks’ customers are already rendered using automated and robotic systems. The next natural step in the development of personal banking services will be the penetration of these technologies into the traditional channels of user interaction, such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat.
In addition to information services, chatbots will also allow managing funds, accounts, and products. Of course, this will be possible only if the level of information security of messengers corresponds to the standards of banks. Just as promising is the linking of banking products and offers to the geographical location of a client. Depending on location, clients can be offered certain credit products and bonuses for non-cash settlements. Moreover, the bank will be able to quickly transfer its bonus offer from one city or district to another, thus achieving greater efficiency in attracting funds and customers”.
Yury Mazurov, Head of the Commercial Directorate, Asteros Group:
“I believe that the phrase “the Stone Age of banking services” is not applicable to modern realities. For instance, Tinkoff Bank operates without offices, performs identification of customers by voice, and carries out all operations via a mobile app. More conservative organizations focus on the acceleration of the digital transformation of banking services and payment systems. There is a growing demand for solutions that automate communication with customers: chatbots and speech recognition systems similar to the virtual operator Elena that already operates in Megaphone and processes automatically up to 70% of incoming requests. Since bank payment transactions have transitioned to online environment, customer identification tools based on biometric parameters are now in great demand (iris recognition, voice recognition, etc.).
The main costs of any bank comprise of office operational costs and personnel. And financial organizations try to optimize these costs by taking advantage of online banking. I think that soon most banks will either switch to fully virtual offices (as Tinkoff Bank), or they will think of creating a nominally virtual office with a minimum number of employees and a call center with video communication. For example, taking into account the distribution of time for the maximum workload of an office, an operator will be able to service several time zones. Artificial systems will be able to perform a credit check and form individual proposals for clients. A private communication channel will remain in the private banking sector when clients need to solve complicated issues related to private capital management”.
Dmitry Odintsov, TrueConf Chief Business Development Officer:
“In Brazil, our technologies have been applied as a basis for virtual offices – special branches of Banpará Bank Brazil, which lack staff. A remote call-center performs their functions. The bank’s clients just need to press “one” on any terminal in the bank’s branch, and after that, high-quality video communication with the first available operator will be established. This technology saves the bank from queues, helps cut costs for financing branches, and allows customers to save their own time and comfortably receive necessary consultations. The only question remains – what can we entrust to a human in this situation if progress allows replacing the whole bank branch with just an office that has a group of terminals and webcams? It is necessary to take into account the human factor – in financial transactions, there are many nuances, and while the computer cannot completely replace a person, automation of banking services is required only for improving consulting tools, but not replacing the consultants themselves”.
Yulia Volikova, exeStation CEO:
“We live in the age of the fastest technology development, and these speeds are ruthless to those who remain in the old paradigm of business development. Changes affect all niches and markets causing system shifts for everyone. The more heterogeneous and unstructured the market is, the more serious revolutions will take place in the next 5-10 years. Automation is the major trend of our time. In all areas, starting from the service sector to the educational market, the main players are concerned with process automation: such platforms as YouDo, Skyeng and other services for communications between the customer and the executor, apply robotics. Based on AI and Big Data analysis, they automate and algorithmize what seems to be complex intellectual processes. The platforms start to structure the market and eliminate contradictions between the client and executor. Thus, it can be assumed that very soon more complex expert tasks will be solved similarly. For example, marketing or PR consulting. I can say that this is already a reality, and there is a proof. Prices become more transparent, a new class of specialists is formed, and the result of launching start-ups becomes more predictable. This future, which already exists now, is simply unevenly distributed”.
