Robots will take over banking

A recent report by management consultancy Accenture suggests that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be the main way that banks interact with their customers within the next three years. The report examined the views of 600 bankers and other experts, with many saying that AI would - ironically - help banks to create a more 'human' customer experience.

The  Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) are already using chatbots to answer customer queries. NatWest also began testing an AI customer service chatbot called ‘Assist’ in December last year. Meanwhile in Sweden, Swedbank's 'Nina' web assistant has an average of 30,000 conversations per month and can handle around 350 different customer questions.

According to Alan McIntyre, head of Accenture's banking practice: "The big paradox here is that people think technology will lead to banking becoming more and more automated and less and less personalised, but what we've seen coming through here is the view that technology will actually help banking become a lot more personalised."

"It will give people the impression that the bank knows them a lot better, and in many ways it will take banking back to the feeling that people had when there were more human interactions."

Another report conducted by Accenture, looking at consumer attitudes to banking, suggests that customers are willing to embrace AI.

In the future, banking may be made much simpler - with people able to conduct transactions on social media platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Accenture is currently working with several UK banks to allow customers to interact with their banks (for example to get balance information and transfer money) via Amazon's smart home speaker Alexa.

Banks could use systems such as Alexa to transcribe conversations with customers to cut down on form-filling. 

According to McIntyre: "Rather than sit down and log on to a website, people want to interact naturally. With things like Netflix, customers are used to AI offering advice in the background and we found consumers are surprisingly willing to accept robotic advice about banking products."

"People want a dialogue, and as AI is more and more able to replicate that, it doesn't feel like speaking to a machine."

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