During this webinar, industry experts discussed how AI is enabling banks to provide a better user experience for having both revenue and customer happiness. We’ve included a short transcription of the webinar, beginning at 10:47 of the webinar.

Dimitri Bianco, Santander Bank: So let's go to the second question here which is, how is AI enabling banks to provide a better user experience for having both revenue and customer happiness? Mudassir, do you want to take this question to start? 

Mudassir Azeemi, Wells Fargo: Yeah, let's start with first the basics of AI; when we build the AI solution. So there are a couple of approaches we take. One is the prediction, the second is classification, the third is clustering and optimization. Now if we talk about how we are enhancing the user experience of a banking customer through AI, then I believe that AI is becoming a new UI because now it is in the background. 

However, it's giving a customer a certain kind of satisfaction. First of all that somebody is actually taking my input and learning from my pattern. And then at the end of the day, what they are seeing is an enhanced experience because somebody understood better than from the human aspect. Like hey, look I want this service, I want that service, but other services I don't really need. So these kind approaches when it comes into play from that aspect are actually enhancing user experiences. 

There are a few more things I would say they are like, as you said just a moment ago, people think from the outside that the banking industry is too slow because we have more laws. That actually adds a frustration or a friction into experiences. However, because now those machine learning tools and insight that we are having more and more is actually reducing that friction. 

For example, I will give you my story. A couple of months ago, when I was with my family in the mall, yes, I work at Wells Fargo and I love their banking services as well, and I had it for the last 16 years. What happened was I swiped my debit card actually to the vending machine and it did not go through a couple of times. Suddenly my kids were shouting out and they were like, ‘dad, we want to eat pretzels’ and they were wrecking the havoc. So I said, alright, let's go and grab it from the store and I used the same card but it did not go through. I was perplexed. I wondered what's going on. I called my wife and asked ‘hey, do we have money?’ and she said ‘yeah, what are you talking about?’ Guess what? My card was blocked by the pattern because of the pattern matched inside the vending machine because, here's the thing, here is the catch: the vending machine was registered for another city. The location of the vending machine was registered in some other city like Union City or the San Francisco Bay area and I was in Dublin.

Now it was declined because of this active insight on my data and on my pattern. I just use the debit card at a gas station as well. So how he can be like in five minutes in Dublin and then suddenly it takes 40 minutes to be in Union City. So the Wells Fargo fraudulent system put a hold on my card and then I had to call. So it was frustrating at the start. However, it was for my security, so yes, I work at Wells Fargo as a disclaimer, but I don't wanna leave them as a bank from my day-to-day tasks. So this story tells you whole aspects of how machine learning and the data and patterns that we are learning about customers are actually enhancing the [customer] experience. And also the products that we’re not going to sell everything to them. We're going to sell only what matches their pattern and with their lifestyle.

Dimitri Bianco, Santander Bank: Yep, that's very good. I mean I've seen similar instances on my card where it's been stolen and then all of a sudden stuff is getting purchased at 2:00 in the morning. I'm so thankful that the company that does my credit card just stops it and then they send you the notification and they can track those patterns. They’re so accurate compared to the alternative, which would be people, trying to manage this behind the scenes, which would just be a lot of effort and work and of course things will slip through the cracks as well. So definitely enhancement for AI and banking.

So one more thing to point out here is just talking about how this is better customer experience. I know a lot of people have used charting so I know who it is. You were talking a little bit about this before the webinar, but even for a personal consumer perspective, it's nice to see all of your breakout on your spending. Like where is it being spent? What categories does it go in? I was definitely someone before all the technology that was in Excel building my own little charts and everything.

Of course it's not realistic for consumers and customers to do it in their own free time. So definitely big advancements and I think a lot of just the simple nice to have touches, but definitely without AI there would be no way that we could actually implement a lot of this technology.

 

Learn more and watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/UfHwn-e3qoE.