AI to become main way banks
interact with customers within three years: Accenture
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[March 28, 2017]
By Jemima Kelly
LONDON
(Reuters) - Artificial intelligence (AI) will become the primary way
banks interact with their customers within the next three years,
according to three quarters of bankers surveyed by consultancy Accenture
<ACN.N> in a new report.
Four in five bankers believe AI will "revolutionise" the way in which
banks gather information as well as how they interact with their
clients, said the Accenture Banking Technology Vision 2017 report, which
surveyed more than 600 top bankers and also consulted tech industry
experts and academics.
Artificial intelligence -- the technology behind driverless cars, drones
and voice-recognition software -- is seen by the financial world as a
key technology which, along with other "fintech" innovations such as
blockchain, will change the face of banking in the coming years.
More than three quarters of respondents to the survey believed that AI
would enable more simple user interfaces, which would help banks create
a more human-like customer experience.
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"The big paradox here is that people think technology will lead to
banking becoming more and more automated and less and less personalized,
but what we've seen coming through here is the view that technology will
actually help banking become a lot more personalized," said Alan
McIntyre, head of the Accenture's banking practice and co-author of the
report.
"(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."
PRIVACY CONCERNS
The top reason for using AI for user interfaces, cited by 60 percent of
the bankers surveyed, was "to gain data analysis and insights".
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The Canary Wharf financial district is seen at dusk in London,
Britain November 7, 2014. REUTERS/Toby Melville
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But
worries over the privacy of data were cited as the top challenge, with one in
three also saying that the fact users often prefer human interactions could also
be a problem.
The report also found that, while the number of human interactions in bank
branches or over the phone was falling and would continue to do so, the quality
and importance of human contact would increase.
"What you're going to get on the bankers' side is access to far better
information, and that's going to allow them to understand what your needs are
and what the advice is that they need to give you," said McIntyre.
Banks' advisory arms are an area considered one of the ripest for technological
innovation.
"The advisory business of banking is a very costly model, and artificial
intelligence can help to manage the data and to scale the advisory model in a
way that was unforeseeable before," said Roberto Mancone, Deutsche Bank's global
head of disruptive technologies and solutions.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Additional reporting by Axel Threlfall; Editing by
Gareth Jones)
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