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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Cloud-based interview marketing company Micronotes has locked in $3 million in funding today, bringing the company’s total amount raised to $8 million. The round was led by TTV Capital, a VC firm focused on early-stage fintech companies. Vestigo Ventures, also an early-stage VC firm with a fintech focus, participated as well.
Micronotes will use the funds to scale its platform by bolstering the support of sales, marketing, and engineering. The Massachusetts-based company focuses on helping banks strengthen customer relationships with a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that leverages machine learning to match customers with banking products and services.
The company offers three main products. The first is Cross-Sell, which helps banks cross-sell products by conducting a mini-interview with customers about their needs without disrupting core banking functions. NPS Module enables banks to individually measure the net promoter score for a large percentage of its user base, instead of just a small sample. And the Predict Module, which scores how relevant every bank product is to each customer, and help banks to anticipate their needs.
“Micronotes’ vision is to interview the world’s customers, all seven billion, starting with banking customers,” said Devon Kinkead, CEO and co-founder of Micronotes. “The team at Vestigo understands our mission and how data and technology can be applied to financial services to create better, stronger and more profitable customer experiences. We look forward to leveraging Vestigo’s strong operational expertise within financial services to rapidly expand into our beachhead market.”
Micronotes was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs and MIT Sloan School alumni, Devon Kinkead and Christian Klacko. Ian Sheridan, co-founder and managing director of Vestigo Ventures, and a member of the Board of Directors for Micronotes, said that the two “represent the rare combination of deep expertise in AI with the ability to achieve superior business outcomes.” At FinovateSpring 2013, the company demoed how Alliance Federal Credit Union leverages its cross-sell capabilities. Last fall, Micronotes released free downloadable propensity scores to help banks access predictive marketing analytics on their clients.
Could blockchain technology revitalize mortgagetech?
Blockchain and smart contract technology innovator Symbiont has teamed up with Ranieri Solutions to explore ways to use its smart contract platform to “systematically improve all aspects of the mortgage industry,” according to an announcement today. Ranieri Solutions is a financial services technology investment firm founded by securitized mortgage market pioneer Lewis Ranieri. The firm sees an opportunity to combine its own knowledge and experience in the mortgage market with Symbiont’s innovations in enterprise blockchain networks.
“When Symbiont was founded, it was my dream and vision to develop decentralized technology solutions that could solve the root problems that were at the heart of the financial crisis,” Symbiont CEO Mark Smith said. “Blockchain and smart contract technology is proving to be that solution.” Smith acknowledged Ranieri’s deep history in and beyond mortgage financing, referring to him as “the genius behind modern securitized markets.” He called the partnership a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for himself and a “seminal moment” for Symbiont.
Ranieri said blockchain technology was an opportunity to modernize a region of the financial world that has not kept up with the rest of the industry. “The mortgage market, despite significant efforts, continues to lag behind from a technological standpoint creating inefficiencies that impact mortgage loans throughout their life cycle,” he said. “By partnering with Symbiont, a proven blockchain pioneer, Ranieri Solutions believes that together we can implement this transformative technology to bring necessary efficiencies, transparency, and security to mortgage markets.”
In addition to putting its blockchain-based smart contract technology to work to the improve mortgage market, Symbiont has demonstrated its effectiveness in a variety of use cases. In December, Symbiont partnered with Vanguard and the Center for Research in Security Prices to use blockchain technology to simplify index data sharing between index providers and market participants. Last summer, the company publicly demonstrated how its Symbiont Assembly platform could be used for private equity issuance, and teamed up with PrivateMarket.io to use its SmartSecurities technology to build an alternative investment marketplace for closed-end funds.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York City, Symbiont participated in our developers conference in New York, FinDEVr 2016. The company’s Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Adam Krellenstein discussed the architecture of Symbiont’s Smart Securities technology in a presentation titled “Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts.” Symbiont has raised more than $15 million in funding and includes Celeridem Capital Management and SenaHill Partners among its investors.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) banking engine provider Mambu has launched its digital marketplace to offer cloud-enabled apps, products and tools for banking and lending, reports Antony Peyton of FinTech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
Mambu Marketplace offers a choice of global and localized solutions which can be integrated with the SaaS engine. Its offerings are based on an API-driven architecture.
Ben Goldin, Mambu’s head of product and technology, said the launch sets the stage for Mambu’s pre-integration strategy and “that no single vendor can provide market leading components for every module of a digital banking architecture.”
Goldin added that for its partners, the marketplace “provides an opportunity to present their offerings to institutions and influencers with the Mambu engine powering a composable architecture.”
Some of these partners named on the marketplace site include fellow Finovate alums Onfido, nCino, Avoka and Experian.
The marketplace was launched as part of Mambu’s “revamped digital identity” which includes a new look website.
Founded in 2011, the German company’s technology powers over 6,000 loan and deposit products which serve over four million end customers. Mambu has more than 250 live operations in over 46 countries, ranging from fintech firms to banks. With more than $13 million in funding, the company demonstrated its technology at FinovateAsia 2013.
Wealthtech company DriveWealth has closed a Series B round of funding this week. The $21 million investment was led by Raptor Group Holdings, SBI Holdings, and Point72 Ventures. Existing investor Route 66 Ventures also participated. This brings the company’s total funding to just shy of $30 million.
DriveWealth will use the funds to enhance its existing products. The New Jersey-based company offers a suite of APIs that help online brokers, digital advisors, and financial services companies access the U.S. securities market. DriveWealth also has an API that allows partners to integrate native investment experiences into their own mobile applications. Among the company’s investment offerings are real-time, dollar-based investing capabilities that enable any investor to own shares in U.S. equities, regardless of stock price or deposit size.
Robert Cortright, CEO of DriveWealth, said that the company’s mission is to “provide global partners low cost, frictionless access to wealth building products.” He added, “Our solutions provide our partners native integration into their customer facing, mobile applications and reimagine investing for the clients they serve.”
As you may expect, today’s investors had positive things to say about DriveWealth and its business model. Yoshitaka Kitao, Chairman of SBI Holdings commented: “As a pioneer of internet-based financial services, we are excited to add DriveWealth to the world’s first ‘financial ecosystem’ that SBI has now expanded from Japan to worldwide.” Pete Casella, Head of Fintech Investments at Point72 Ventures, said, “DriveWealth has built a world class tech-driven brokerage stack that allows fintech firms to incorporate a wide range of investments capabilities into their product offerings.”
Founded in 2012, DriveWealth’s clients include MoneyLion, a lending and wealth management app, and INVSTR, a U.K.-based stock trading application. At FinovateAsia 2016, the company released a new API to enable partners to offer a robo advisory product suite and a self-directed equity investing platform. In 2016, the company partnered with Alkanza to bring robo advisory solutions to Latin America.
John Waupsh is Chief Innovation Officer of Kasasa, an award-winning financial technology and marketing technology provider. Ahead of his session at FinovateSpring where John will talk about the role of the branch in a digital world, he discusses how loans should help people save for retirement.
Building retirement savings is not a strong suit for many Americans. According to a 2018 survey by GoBankingRates, more than 40 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, including the 14 percent with $0 saved for retirement. Financial planning experts frequently recommend having at least eight times your salary saved for your post-career future, and with life expectancy continuing to increase, the minimal recommend savings will likely rise even higher.
It’s so easy for consumers to put off saving for retirement. Their last day on the job seems so far away, and bearing today’s financial burdens like bills and loan payments often means restricting, reducing or simply never beginning to save for tomorrow.
But there’s a better way.
Historically, consumers have often felt like they must jump through three hoops before starting to save for retirement or increasing investments in their future. First, they must be meeting their primary needs like paying power bills and buying groceries. Second, many want to build cushions of both emergency and “fun money,” in case the need arises to pay for a last-minute home repair, an unforeseen medical expense or even a spontaneous weekend vacation. Last, many want to pay off their debt before beginning to save or increasing retirement contributions. These second and third hoops are where many consumers are missing out.
Despite the fact that most Americans want to pay off their loans faster to increase retirement savings, those that meet their primary needs rarely pay extra toward their monthly loan payments because it’s money they can never get back if they need or want it later.
That’s changing with the Kasasa Loan. It is the only loan product that can serve as a tool for building savings through the ability to take-back extra payments.
A loan that allows borrowers to pay ahead to reduce debt, but take that extra back if they need it, eliminates the fear of parting with ‘extra money,’ enabling the consumer to make better financial decisions like paying down debt faster. And when debt is paid down sooner, consumers are freed up to boost retirement savings earlier, when it really counts due to the power of compound interest. Consumers like this option. In fact, according to a recent study, nine out of ten consumers prefer a loan with take-back functionality over comparably priced loans, and 98 percent of consumers say they would refinance existing debt at the same rate to have the flexibility of taking back their extra payments.
In addition to flexibility, visual transparency is something that the lending world has been lacking until now. The innovation of sleek, mobile-friendly dashboards in personal financial management (PFM) apps have long helped consumers budget and visually understand their money. Consumers should now expect the same features from a loan. Having the ability to actually see the impact of extra payments enables borrowers to comprehend better the impact of paying down their loan faster and therefore, make smarter financial decisions for their future.
As Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials and even Generation Z inch closer to retirement, there is an opportunity for these consumers to make better borrowing decisions by choosing a loan that is extremely flexible, easy to work with, and visually transparent. In the past, taking out a loan has prevented consumers from saving for their future. Now, it is possible for them to borrow in a way that not only doesn’t hurt their retirement funds but actually helps them save.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Analytics and visualization company MapD has its head in the cloud this week. That’s because the San Francisco-based company launched a cloud-based offering, MapD Cloud.
The new service has been in the making since the company launched in 2016, but proved difficult to implement without widespread availability of GPUs in the public cloud. Previously, it was difficult for customers to set up a cluster of GPUs to run MapD software because it was challenging to find a hardware manufacturer that carried GPU server SKUs– they were scarce in public clouds. This has shifted, however, with the rise of GPU computing adoption and major technology players providing support for GPU infrastructure.
Leveraging this shift, MapD has partnered with hardware vendors to standardize on-premises deployments and launched on the AWS marketplace. These moves have helped the company become a leader in GPU-accelerated analytics.
MapD was founded in 2013. The company’s CEO Todd Mostak most recently demoed the company’s Core and Immerse components at FinovateSpring 2017. Mostak also gave a presentation at FinDEVr New York 2017 titled How GPU-Powered Visual Analytics Are Remaking Financial Services. Last fall, MapD teamed up with IBM Power Systems to enhance the speed at which SQL queries can be performed.
Since the first spring fintech conference in 2008, a total of six companies have won Best of Show honors more than once. These companies range from some of our earlier innovators like oflows and Wikinvest that have since gone on to bigger and better things, as well as more recent multiple-time winners like MX and SaleMove that have picked up Best of Show awards at our other events in London and New York.
With FinovateSpring just over a month away, we thought we’d give a tip of the hat to the companies that have helped make our Spring shows especially memorable with their demonstrations of audience-pleasing, Best of Show-winning fintech. Below the six, two-time FinovateSpring Best of Show winners, we’ve also included a complete history of FinovateSpring Best of Show winners. It’s all designed to whet your appetite for the cutting-edge fintech you’ll see on stage on May 8-9 in Santa Clara, California for FinovateSpring 2018.
SaleMove (2017, 2016) – Dedicated to bringing the in-person customer experience online, New York City-based SaleMove leverages its engagement platform to give clients in wealth management, banking, insurance, and other verticals the ability to interact with their customers in the channel – or channels – they prefer. With live video, voice, live chat, and co-browsing, SaleMove’s platform helps financial services businesses communicate better and more effectively with their customers, leading to more sales, more conversations, and improved customer service. The company was founded in 2012, and has raised more than $5 million in funding.
Money Desktop/MX (2013, 2012) – In rebranding to MX in 2014, the multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner signaled it was ready to maximize its expertise in financial data acquisition, cleansing, and visualization to help financial service providers make the most of their underused and unused data. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Lehi, Utah, MX has raised $75 million in funding, and began the year with news that Coast Capital Savings – Canada’s largest credit union by membership with more than $20 billion in assets – would deploy a next-generation PFM solution developed by MX.
PayNearMe (2013, 2011) – With more than $90 million in funding, PayNearMe operates a real time, cash transaction network that gives consumers without bank accounts or access to automatic payments the ability to pay with cash. Founded in 2009 and based in Sunnyvale, California, the company acquired Prism Money in 2016 and shortly afterwards reorganized itself as Handle Financial to better communicate its various brands to consumers.
Dwolla (2012, 2011) – Enterprise payments platform Dwolla is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa and was founded in 2008 by Ben Milne. The company’s white-label payments API enables businesses to credit or debit user-connected accounts, and its technology is also used for verification and user discovery. With more than $51 million in funding, Dwolla recently announced it would power identity verification for Yahoo!’s Tanda savings app.
oflows (2011, 2010) – Founded in 2009 and acquired by fellow Finovate alum Andera in the fall of 2011, oflows specialized in multi-channel paperless account opening solutions. The company was named a Top 10 Company to Watch in 2011 by Bank Technology News. Andera itself was the subject of an acquisition in 2014, when it was purchased by Bottomline Technologies for $48 million.
Wikinvest/SigFig (2011, 2010) – Known today as SigFig, the company was founded in 2007 as a consumer finance portal called Wikinvest. Picking up a pair of Best of Show awards in the early days of Finovate, the company has since grown into one of wealthtech’s biggest success stories as a wealth management services provider with more than $114 million in assets under management.
And here’s the full list of FinovateSpring Best of Show winners.
Security breach detection and account takeover prevention service SpyCloud recently brought home $5 million in funding. The Series A round comes courtesy of existing investors Silverton Partners and March Capital Partners. This brings the Austin-based company’s total funding to $7.5 million.
SpyCloud helps prevent account takeovers by proactively identifying exposed accounts as early as possible so that businesses can force password changes for vulnerable accounts before fraudsters take action. The company will use the new funds to fuel product development, conduct deeper security research, expand its database of assets, and grow its team.
The company was founded in 2016 and emerged from stealth mode a year later. Since that time, SpyCloud has compiled a database of 32 billion exposed accounts, leaked passwords, and pieces of personally identifiable information; it adds billions of new account data points every month. This data repository is available to service providers via an API to help prevent customer account takeover. SpyCloud has protected tens of millions of accounts for notable companies across a variety of industries, including finance, retail, and healthcare.
“There isn’t a company in the world that doesn’t run the constant risk of having its employee or customer accounts exposed, and that leads to a host of other issues,” said Ted Ross, CEO and co-founder of SpyCloud. “The only chance businesses stand against these increasingly-proficient criminals is to know as soon as possible which accounts have been exposed and to take preventative measures well before credentials make it onto the dark web.”
SpyCloud CEO and Co-Founder Ted Ross, along with Head of Business Development, Chris LaConte, gave a Best of Show-winning presentation at FinovateFall 2017. The company also has the honor of winning the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency Defense Innovation Challenge. We published a profile on SpyCloud, along with an interview with Ross, last fall.
It is no surprise to see companies like NVIDIA, Intel, Dell EMC, and SAS at the top of the quarterly insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 roster. But what caught our eye was the handful of Finovate alums that won recognition on insideBIGDATA’s review of companies that are “making waves in the technology areas of big data, data science, machine learning, AI, and deep learning.”
“Our in-box is filled each day with new announcements, commentaries, and insights about what’s driving the success of our industry so we’re in a unique position (to) publish our quarterly IMPACT 50 List of the most important movers and shakers in our industry,” Daniel D. Gutierrez, managing editor and resident data scientist of insideBIGDATA wrote in an article accompanying the announcement.
What does it take to make the list? Gutierrez explained that the roster consists of companies that “exhibit technology leadership, strength of offering, proven innovation, positivity of message, quality perception in the enterprise, intensity and frequency of social media buzz, high profile of members of the C-suite, and in the case of public companies: positive financial indicators and stock price, and so much more!”
Our five honored Finovate alums are below. To see the full list of 50 “DataTech” companies, visit insideBIGDATA.
#9 Google (Europe 2018, Fall 2011): Appearing first on the Finovate stage with its Google Advisor solution and as recently as this spring in partnership with KBC Bank Ireland, Google is in the top ten of insideBIGDATA’s Impact 50 list. Google needs little introduction as one of the companies that has done the most to bring the benefits of data to technology consumers via solutions like Search, Maps, Google Play, and its Chrome browser. Founded in 1998, Google is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
#14 Kinetica (Europe 2018, Fall 2017): Founded in 2009 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Kinetica enables financial institutions to conduct on-demand risk calculations using the most up-to-date data with “sub-second speed.” High frequency trading firms and traditional asset managers alike can leverage Kinetica’s technology to measure risk, identify customer behavioral patterns, and locate up-sell opportunities. With $63 million in funding, Kinetica includes fellow insideBIGDATA Impact 50 members Dell EMC, NVIDIA, and Google Cloud Platform among its partners.
#15 MapD (Spring 2017, Fall 2016): Developer of the world’s fastest open source SQL engine, MapD harnesses GPUs to deliver extreme speed at scale. Based in San Francisco, MapD provides users with powerful data visualizations made possible by the technology’s ability to query and render billions of rows of data in milliseconds. MapD’s technology originated from research conducted at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Todd Mostak is CEO of the company, which was founded in 2013.
#40 Narrative Science (Fall 2013, Spring 2013): Specialists in Advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), Narrative Science builds solutions that enable financial institutions to analyze, understand, communicate, and act upon their data quickly and efficiently. The company’s technology can turn ordinary numeric and symbolic data and visualizations into “intelligent narratives” that express insights and context in language that is indistinguishable from that of a human author. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and founded in 2010, Narrative Science has raised more than $43 million in funding. Stuart Frankel is CEO.
#46 TIBCO (Asia 2013, Asia 2012): Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, TIBCO is a leader in integration, API management, and analytics. The company’s TIBCO Connected Intelligence Cloud gives enterprise users access to a unified suite of services including the company’s low-code development platform, TIBCO Cloud Live Apps. The company was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in September 2014 in a deal valued at $4.3 billion. TIBCO made headlines earlier this year with the appointment of a new CTO and COO.
Bazaarvoicelaunches new solution to make personalization more powerful.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Banks and financial institutions have long been at the forefront of adopting technologies to increase efficiencies and provide better service to customers. From ATMs to online banking, they’ve helped to seamlessly integrate transactional technologies into the customer’s daily life. Financial institutions currently find themselves at the forefront of adopting new cognitive AI technologies that are redefining and elevating the customer experience. To add to our webinar, we speak to Grant Thornton about the realities of what fintech really means, and how you can capitalize on the impressive challenges we should expect over the next decade.
Finovate: How can your organisation prepare for and embrace the rise of intelligent automation? What are the key steps to consider?
Grant Thornton: Intelligent automation, including robotics and artificial intelligence, have transformed entire industries over the last two decades. Now it’s time for the financial services industry. Although it’s still early, financial services is headed down the same inevitable path to disruption and towards an explosion in productivity and efficiency.
In the next 5-10 years, the productivity of the enterprise will be transformed through multiple technologies, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Natural Language Processing (NLP), or Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Fintech represents a long-term, systemic change in the industry. The only successful way forward is to take a long-term view. The key is to plan for a steady pace of adoption for interrelated technologies rather than focus on individual projects and siloed technological innovations that will not build upon each other.
The first step is to improve your “digital quotient” — the extent to which your processes, information, data and activities are in digital form. A high digital quotient makes your path to the cognitive enterprise easier.
To build your digital quotient, take a clear look at your efficiencies and operating model:
How many processes and activities are digitally accessible?
How much data is available?
How much conversion work is needed?
Start by piloting small, focused projects that are clearly measurable and materially understood. Engage your C-Suite and ensure that they understand the importance of building your organization’s digital quotient. They need to support the significant operational and cultural changes that come with becoming an automated cognitive enterprise. This is critical to your organization’s success.
Finovate: Do customers expect AI-driven experiences in their interactions with businesses?
Grant Thornton: Thanks to their experience with leading retailers and technology giants—including Apple’s Siri and Google’s Alexa—we believe customers will not only expect, but will actually demand AI-driven experiences in their interactions.
In fact, AI will soon seem normal:
By 2020, IBM[1] projects that more than 85% of all customer interactions will be handled without the need for a human agent.
By 2025, Forbes Magazine[2] estimates that 95% of customer interactions will be supported by AI technology.
AI empowers personalization like never before. Customers don’t want to be treated as “one of the crowd.” Companies such as Amazon, Walmart and Google set high standards for quality of personalized customer experience, and customers routinely compare their experiences with financial institutions to their most recent shopping experience.
Finovate: What are the key advantages of offering chatbot interaction? Do customers consider communication with chatbots as a 2-way communication channel? In the future, will banks have something like an Alexa to guide their customers through their website and services?
Grant Thornton: According to a report by Grand View Research reported on BusinessInsider.com[3], the global chatbot market is expected to reach $1.23 billion by 2025, an annual growth rate of 24.3 percent. Likewise InfoWorld.com[4] reports that approximately 45 percent of global users prefer chatbots as the primary mode of communication for customer service inquires.
In fact, according to ForbesMagazine[5], chatbots are becoming so common that consumers are growing to expect them. For example:
Domino’s uses a Facebook Messenger chatbot named Dom that allows customers to place an order simply by sending a message that says “pizza”. The bot gets the details and the order is completed faster than a customer could call the store or drive to place an order.
China Merchant Bank, one of the largest credit card companies in China, takes advantage of AI bots to interact with a huge number of customers. The bank’s WeChat Messenger bot handles 1.5 to 2 million customer conversations each day, mostly about things like card balances and payments. Customers can quickly get the information they need, and it saves the bank from hiring thousands of human employees to match the same volume of requests.
In banking, chatbots can go beyond the basic functions of mobile banking, enabling banks to start a conversation about each customer’s finances. They can use predictive analytics, and cognitive messaging to perform tasks ranging from making payments to checking balances and paying down debt and even notifying customers of personalized savings opportunities.
Millennials, in particular, seem to be enthusiastic about computer-generated advice and services. This trend reflects the fact that they typically gravitate toward the latest in digital banking technologies as digital natives. This is not just because these tools are cool or cutting-edge, but because they deliver banking customer experiences that are simple, consistent and relevant.
Finovate: Can you share what intelligent opportunities are available for the customer within personalised eCommerce experience?
Grant Thornton: It’s one thing to know what the consumer wants and what should be done to provide a differentiated and contextual consumer experience—it’s another to be able to deliver on the “personalization promise.”
Staying relevant in today’s competitive environment demands personalization. Unlike most banks, Fintech firms provide consumers with an improved digital experience based on contextual insight and simplified delivery of financial services. These smaller start-ups build solutions that often are superior to those from legacy financial institutions by leveraging advanced analytics of consumer data and digital technology.
Whether they’re patronizing traditional legacy banking institutions or the newest of Fintech startups, consumers demand deals and discounts, convenience, relevance and customer experiences that combine the latest in digital banking with human interaction. They will share personal data to get what they want, and will switch if they do not.
Finovate: How to achieve balance between the human touch and technology in customer experience? Does AI contribute to the true currency of a customer relationship – engagement and loyalty?
Grant Thornton: Because consumers do the vast majority of their shopping for a new financial institution using digital channels, it is no longer adequate to wait until the customer or member walks into a branch or decides to purchase a new product online or via smartphone.
Instead, banks need to engage customers at the earliest stages of their purchase journey.
AI is an important tool for institutions that seek to become a bank with a “personal touch.” They should not, however, presume that frequent customer interactions alone create true engagement or develop enduring relationships. What really matters is the quality and personal relevance of customer communications.
Banks must put customers’ wants and needs at the heart of all activities. They need to shift their focus from simply selling products and services towards providing relevant and contextual financial advice. In other words, a bank should demonstrate a true interest in customers’ financial well-being. AI affords banks the insight and capability they need to make this shift in focus.
Finovate: How can an organisation capitalise on the deployment of a smart AI/ML solution?
Grant Thornton: At the most basic level, technological advances can boost process efficiency, which translates to faster, around-the-clock responses to customer inquiries. Additionally, chabots powered AI/ML can assist customers through the online account opening process by proactively suggesting personalized services based on life events and previous banking experiences.
Beyond traditional uses for financial performance and regulatory reporting, data can be collected, processed and analyzed as a means to understanding customers’ expectations in order to enhance their experience. As banks advance their digital programs, they can uncover insights about trends, products and services to improve, which to discontinue, and where to devote resources. This results in institutional cost savings, but more importantly, in greater customer satisfaction.
At a higher level, AI/ML solutions can reveal new opportunities by tapping into underutilized data sources. For example, monitoring internet browsing and uniting customer, product and pricing data can reveal new insights into customer desires and preferences. With this knowledge, a bank can nuance solutions and target ads to specific consumer groups and influencers.
Finally, smart AI/ML solutions can help banks access data that supports or enhances their overall strategic framework. In the process, they can develop a holistic understanding of their customers, opening the door to faster, more flexible product prototypes that are responsive based on the data and interaction that the customers are providing.
This holistic picture of the customer needs enables financial institutions to be proactive and to cross-sell more effectively. In essence, they are able to more effectively anticipate and serve customer needs, helping them on their journey while increasing share of wallet.
