[ M A R K E T
R E V I E W
|
C H AT B O T S ]
Though we have seen chatbots in the
retail space, we are one of the first to use
them in the custody space. For our clients
collaboration in this area is a no-brainer
as it helps them improve the services to
their end-client.”
Tan offers a simple example by way of
illustration: “Let’s say an asset manager
calls their global custodian to check on a
status. The global custodian will nor-
“We are developing chatbots to deliver data
from DB that is normally requested by phone
straight into our client’s system from where
it can be fed to their client without manual
intermediation.”
JESLYN TAN, GLOBAL HEAD OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
FOR SECURITIES SERVICES, DEUTSCHE BANK
mally call us and we’ll check internally
and route a response back the same way.
Deutsche Bank receives a large number
of queries from clients over trade status
and the high levels of manual interaction
between organisations involved in dealing
with them is costly in time and resources
for all concerned. A combined ecosystem
between our two organisations allows
us both to reduce the time and resource
involved in supporting queries, while
improving the efficiency of the service
provided,” she explains.
As mentioned before, the financial
services industry is very much following
the consumer space, which is undeniably
less complex than the capital markets.
Does this mean client queries may be too
detailed or bespoke for chatbots?
“We face many recurrent questions
daily,” says Harwood-Jones. “Where is
my trade? Is it going to settle or isn’t it?
What’s happened to my corporate action?
My income is late; can you explain what is
54
Global Custodian
Winter 2018
happening? With the tool we have launched you can drive very
quickly through the landscape you’ve mapped, responding to
queries very fast.
“What is it you’re trying to resolve? The objective is to give
complete information as quickly as possible, thereby improving
your responsiveness and value. Clients will say they are less
fussed on how they get their information as long as they get it
swiftly, plus it is accurate and complete.”
Deutsche Bank explains that it has kept its focus very narrow
and specific by targeting trade settlement status queries for the
Hong Kong market to deliver quickly into the market, and is
constantly improving and tweaking with each passing month.
“We overcame issues, tested the system, got more user feed-
back; then people realised they wanted more features. So every
month we introduce new features and enhancements,” Tan
explains, adding that there are a couple more markets in the
pipeline for rolling out the chatbots.
BNY Mellon also said it plans to extend the chatbots to other
markets in the coming year.
“Our solution now creates a more efficient way to exchange
this information and allows our clients to put their resources to
use in greater value-added areas that would ultimately improve
efficiency and profitability,” said Hani Kablawi, chief executive
officer of BNY Mellon’s global asset servicing business at the
time of the release.
While we’ve sung the praises of chatbouts for over a thousand
words so far, there are naturally a few concerns to address. One
of these is the need for chatbots to be insulated against phishing,
with expert criminals now becoming proficient at manipulating
voice replication tools to fool bank security systems. Secondly,
like those who reject Kindles for ‘real’ books, there will be some
who are uncomfortable speaking to a robot, certainly in their
early days of introduction.
Research within the State of Chatbots Report 2018 showed
that wanting to deal with a real-life respondent was the biggest
reason for not wanting to interact with a chatbot.
“Not all consumers are ready to abandon human-to-human
interactions entirely, and some aren’t sure they trust the tech-
nology to perform certain tasks without making mistakes,” the
survey concluded.
Weighing up all the evidence however, it is clear that the cost
and time reductions through using chatbots are undeniably at-
tractive. Along with reducing errors and enabling staff to be re-
deployed or refocused on more client relationship-angled roles,
it’s clear that the introduction of chatbots across the industry in
the coming years will benefit both service providers and clients.