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EDITOR’S QUESTION
MARTIN HÄRING,
CHIEF MARKETING
OFFICER, FINASTRA
A
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s the Fourth Industrial Revolution
continues to transform businesses
and the way they operate, Artificial
Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being viewed
as fundamental in improving customer
experience. And banks are no exception to
this rule.
Today, marketing teams in fintech
companies and banks are putting strong
emphasis on using AI to finetune the
manner in which they reach, engage with
and retain their customers.
According to research by Gartner, AI bots
are predicted to power 85% of all customer
service interactions by 2020. This underlines
the fact that AI can be an extremely powerful
technological tool if combined with the data-
driven insights that banks currently possess.
It can allow financial institutions to truly
get to grips with how to best appeal
to their customers’ needs while further
understanding their behaviours, preferences
and limitations.
Customers show greater loyalty to banks that
know who they are and tailor experiences to
them. To deliver against this goal, it’s essential
for banks to be conversant with the use of Big
Data, AI and Machine Learning.
Celent research showed that 55% of banks
are either using, actively considering or
seeking new ways to innovate. During
our flagship regional thought leadership
conference, Finastra Universe, last year, 40
% of the audience said that AI would help
them do their job better. In addition, almost
a quarter believed AI will take care of their
least interesting tasks, which positions AI in a
support role rather than a threat to jobs.
Just as we are witnessing an increase in
the use of digital assistants such as Alexa,
Siri or Cortana to check the weather, book
www.intelligentcio.com
a taxi or reserve cinema tickets, the next
step for banks is to launch consistent voice
activated services.
Such technologies do not necessarily have
to be limited to the retail side of financial
services – they can further add value to
customers across other business lines
including corporate banking, treasury and
capital markets.
At Finastra, we proactively support this
kind of innovation across all areas of
banking. Through our Platform-as-a-Service
offering, FusionFabric.cloud, we are actively
opening up our software to encourage new
developments and innovations from Fintechs
and start-ups.
Of course, and as with every new technology,
financial institutions must first evaluate the
potential risks and associated benefits they
may face before turning to AI. By deploying
a low-risk and low-cost solution as a first
step, banks should gather usage data to help
them make informed, data-driven decisions
as they continue to explore more advanced
voice capabilities for their customers.
The ultimate aim of AI in this sector
is to profoundly stimulate increased
competition, leading customers to assess
different bank offers and shift should they
come across a service that better suits their
needs elsewhere.
In our industry, delivering great customer
experience is fundamental in allowing banks
to generate stronger relationships with their
customers that will, in turn, create deeper
loyalty and provide better experiences.
Being able to personalise and improve
customer experience over time by
harnessing the power of AI and Big Data will
significantly contribute to any bank’s success
in the near future. It will allow them to turn
this Big Data into recommendations which
can then be transformed into vital action,
better serving their customers.
As we all know, in today’s heavily digitised
world, exceptional customer experience is
the decisive factor in a business’s growth
tomorrow. Embracing that change as a
powerful force for businesses will prove
fundamental in this growth. n
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