HDFC Bank has joined hands with Niki.ai, the artificial intelligence firm to bring in ‘conversational banking’. In May this year, Ratan Tata and Roni Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures picked up stakes in Niki.ai.
This service allows bank customers to conveniently access their bank accounts through chatbots that facilitate commerce and banking transactions without getting out of the chat window. With over 71% of our transaction taking place on digital platforms, internet and mobile are now core banking channels.
Through social media like Facebook messenger, the chatbot will facilitate e-commerce transactions like booking a cab, ordering food or paying bill, is made possible.The HDFC Bank on-chat app is available to anyone. It is a payment gateway through which transactions can be made using any bank account.
How does a chatbot work? For instance, if you ask chatbot to book a cab, the bot will get your location and look for cabs available with different aggregators. A similar chatbot will be available within the bank’s log-in page and facilitate ‘assisted net banking’ transactions without having to navigate deep into the website.
Sometime in mid-2016, for the first time in Asia Pacific, DBS – a leading bank in Asia, was the first one to introduce a virtual assistant to help their app-only Digibank account holders to converse using their preferred mobile messaging app. The conversational AI technology allows DBS customers to access banking services to manage their money across accounts, track expenses and even make payments in the process. DBS also plans to extend this service to other mobile messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat in the future.
US-based Kasisto’s conversational AI platform delivers this service for DBS. Kasisto’s, KAI, powers smart bots and virtual assistants with deep banking knowledge.
