Conversational AI in Financial Services

In the world we live in today, convenience is everything a person wants. The other day, I saw a friend order things online with a doorstep delivery, even though there were extra charges. Yet he chose to have online shopping done rather than going to the shop themselves because convenience is what matters to everyone today.

Now, when it comes to handling finances, even here, we prefer convenience, and having AI as a helping hand is going to be very useful. In recent days, conversational AI such as chatbots and virtual assistants has begun to play a role. AI has changed how we engage with our finances, it allows you to get assistance in real-time, personalized advice, or even make transactions.

In this blog, let me get to you about how conversational AI has been transforming the field of finance and the services finance provides, allowing life to be much easier for companies and their clients. C’mon, let’s start with some of the major fields conversational AI has transformed in the world of finance.

Virtual Assistants and Customer Support

When I was a kid, there were times we had to wait several hours to get a simple issue solved. But right now, with the help of virtual assistants which are also AI-dependant, financial companies provide a 24/7 support service to their clients, giving them solutions for their problems in a matter of seconds. Without any human interference or assistance, AI chatbots have made it easier, whether you want to see the balance in your account or if you got locked out of your account. Let’s go through the features that make it wonderful.

• Quick Response: AI chatbots are not like you and me, they don’t need a break, and they can give fast responses even at 3 AM.
• Lesser Waiting Period: By using AI chatbots, which resolve simple issues it gives more time for human agents to solve complex issues, this way, it’ll reduce customer frustration as well.
• Consistency: There is consistency in how AI gives you information that is accurate, without being tired, making sure the customers get answers consistently.

Let me give an example, ‘Erica’ which is a virtual assistant of the Bank of America helps its customers by completing tasks such as maintaining credit scores, bills getting to be paid, and going through your balances— all of these via a conversational platform.

Personalized Advice on Finance

Virtual assistants that are driven by AI use their capabilities to give you advice which are personalized as per your business in your financial world. And plus point is that the advice provided is based on data from real time. It helps you plan out strategies if you want to finish off your debts or study your incoming and outgoing payments. Now, let’s see some of its features.

• Customized Recommendation: AI gives you a proper analysis of your account, going through and giving you suggestions on your savings, goals, or even better techniques to keep everything under budget.
• Steady Monitoring: AI tools ensure continuously that your needs get monitored, setting out alerts on risks or opportunities for you.

For example, let’s take the tool ‘Cleo’ which is mainly used to help its users maintain their spending and gives suggestions on how to save or be under your budget borders, it’s a great tool!

Simplifying Daily Tasks

Would you like to spend your precious time running around getting your bills paid or doing transactions, manually, by yourself? No, same with me, I wouldn’t like it either. Conversational AI helps these tasks to be completed effortlessly. It can schedule your daily tasks like reminding you to pay bills, checking balances in your account, or completing transactions. Talking about its features, let’s continue.

• Set and Forget It: Basically this means that you can have AI systems automatically alert you on your upcoming payments and bills, and guess what, it could even pay those bills for you.
• Management of Account: Just like I mentioned before, it manages your account by completing the tasks as per your need.

For example, you all might be aware of ‘PayPal’ and also ‘Venmo’ which are payment wallets, that use AI chatbots now, to check the balance or go through your and manage your refunds without going through several pages.

Detecting and Preventing Fraud

Getting scammed and seeing your bank account with a zero, is such a scare right? But you know with AI, it has become hard for scammers to complete their scamming journey. Conversational AI systems study the behaviors of the users and can tag the unusual patterns in the user’s behavior in real-time, preventing fraud before it can affect the user. Let’s talk about its features.

• Alerts in Real-TIme: AI can give you alerts immediately about suspicious patterns, maybe like an unusual payment from an odd location.
• Smart Authentication: AI assistants have started using biometrics to track how you type or engage with your devices, so using that they can verify your identity, adding one more layer of protection.
• Predicting Risks: AI learns by going through the user’s patterns to analyze and predict possibilities of fraud before it happens, letting banks and customers be one step ahead.

For example, we can take the case of Mastercard’s AI technology that continuously manages your transactions to see if they find any signs of fraud involved, to ensure that users get alerted about any suspicious pattern.

Mortgage and Loan Applications

In movies and real life, you might have noticed applying for mortgages or loans is going to consume half your lifetime but that same process has sped up by using conversational AI. Virtual assistants act as your own personal assistants guiding you through applications and making filling out forms simpler. Now, let me talk about its features.

• Processes Faster: AI assistants can give you pre-approvals for getting loans or mortgages according to pre-set rules, reducing waiting time.
• Guided Assitance: It provides explanations to customers about the options and terms they have before they commit to the application.
• Collecting Documents: AI can automatically get you documents, letting the application process be a bit smooth and fast.

For example, ‘Kabbage’ is a lending server that uses conversational AI to efficiently complete the application process, reducing the time to get approval for your applications, so now you can get it approved within minutes rather than weeks.

Payments and Transactions

In the world of finance, conversational AI has made all your financial tasks such as making payments a simple task, like texting your friend. You don’t have to surf several times through apps to complete your tasks, you can just get a chatbot. Let’s talk about its features.

• Voice Commands: You might know about ‘Siri’ and ‘Alexa’, well right now, they can do all your tasks like making a payment just by listening to you.
• History of Transactions: One plus point of using conversational AI is that it gives you a history of your transactions just within seconds after you request it.
• Security: AI systems make sure your transactions are handled with security by using biometrics or two-factor verification.

Financial Education and Guidance

In this generation, compared to the older ones, education about finance and how it works is a rising concern and conversational AI has been playing a better role in educating them. Whether you want to explain what compound interest means or give investment options, AI assistance can be used to offer guidance in an easy-to-understand way. About its features, let’s continue it below.

• Learning Interactively: Customers can get answers immediately to their financial questions, that too in real-time.
• Simplifying Complicated Terms: It helps to explain complex financial terms in an explanation much simpler, allowing users to understand easily.
• Budgeting Help: AI systems and assistants can help guide you in keeping your money under budget, and decreasing debt.

For instance, there are apps like ‘Albert’ which have been using conversational AI to educate customers on financial topics with step-by-step assistance.

To finalize, conversational AI plays a role not just in enhancing customer support, it has started to reshape how we manage our bank accounts. Starting from completing tasks such as giving personalized advice, fraud detection, and even guiding through loan applications, AI has become a useful tool in the financial world. With the increased number of people adapting to technology, the finance field has turned into a much more efficient, secure field that is accessed by anyone. So, c’mon, you can also get started by using AI to manage your pockets!

Frequently Associated Questions (FAQs)