By Chris Cox, Apiture COO
I recently attended FinovateFall in New York, which is always a great opportunity to hear about the latest innovation in the financial industry. It wasn’t a surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) was front and center in many of the presentations and demos — including Apiture’s. I had a chance to share my thoughts about the future of digital engagement, one where AI offers the potential to dramatically change how customers interact with their financial institution. For those who missed it, here are some of my thoughts.
A Call to Action
There are a lot of statistics about how digital engagement can impact customer satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value. But the one that I find most interesting is that 51% of consumers would be willing to switch banks for a better digital experience. If your institution doesn’t have a clear vision for its digital customer experience, this stat should be alarming — and a call to action.
What should you do today to prepare for the future of digital banking, one that helps you meet the evolving demands of your customers?
What has seemed like a confusing swirl of technology buzzwords like AI, machine learning, data analytics and more are finally starting to coalesce into real-world applications. But cobbling together these new technologies and hoping you get a benefit from them is likely to fall short. Instead, we must first create a vision of how technology can empower us to better serve customers. Then we can work backwards from the vision to see how implementing technology over time can make it a reality.
Today’s typical digital banking experience is often presented as a form-guided, menu-driven activity. As a result, it can sometimes feel like “everything you need is only 14 clicks away.”
Contrast that with Google’s homepage. This is a simple, elegant, yet powerful user experience that directs users to interact with a single search bar. The investment in this type of interaction is in the search function — what happens behind the user interface and not the user interface itself.
What if digital banking took a similar approach, presenting a simple UI on top of deep banking functionality, with a prompt-driven interface versus the form-like interface you see today? Something closer to ChatGPT or Google Bard? Something that renders digital banking as not just a user interface but instead a powerful tool that allows users to accomplish what they need to, when they need to?
For example, instead of finding the section of the mobile app that lets them check their credit score, what if customers could simply ask to see it, using whatever language is natural to them? Or, what if they could simply ask, “How much money do I have?” and the app responded with a list of accounts and balances?
Primarily, consumers and businesses want and need their financial institutions to help them maximize their wealth. This could mean providing the highest return investments, or lowest rate loans, or firm-but-friendly spending controls, or risk management products. All of these are banking products, but customers don’t necessarily understand them or even know what their options are. They simply want help maximizing their wealth over time.
Building on this, we can envision delivering service beyond deposits, loans, and payments and creating a true technology-enabled partnership. Imagine, for example, if, through whatever interface is most convenient for customers, they could ask the simple yet fundamentally important question “How am I doing today?” The financial institution could respond with a relevant snapshot:
Everything looks good.
All bills are paid.
Savings goals are on track.
I increased the amount you save every month slightly, because I moved your student loan to a provider with a lower interest rate.
Or imagine a customer who says, “I want to start my own business. I need capital to get started,” and receives this response:
Of course.
Much of the documentation needed to start the loan application process is already in your vault.
I will need some more specifics about your business.
I will send you the list of questions you’ll need to answer.
I see a future where customers view their digital banking experience as trusted, convenient, and effortless. I see vast potential for banks and credit unions to deepen their relationship with customers through an elegant, technology-enabled experience.
To make this vision a reality, technology will need to continue to mature, business relationships will need to be established, and consumers will need to trust the technology. In time, though, technology will enable financial institutions to become real, lifelong partners to their customers.
We’d love to help you prepare for the future of digital banking. Contact us to learn how.