Trends & Challenges : Conversational Banking

Three Trends Impacting Growth of Conversational Banking

According to Accenture, three trends are coming together to support the transition from transactions to interactions.

1. Messaging is now the preferred method of interaction: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, etc. have overtaken social media as the preferred way of communication on mobile devices. They are both simple and intuitive, leveraging text or voice-based interfaces. These apps also are AI-ready, offering easy integration with chatbots and cognitive agents.
2. AI is now accessible to all organizations: The decreased cost of data storage, analytic tools and development in machine learning and deep learning enables the automation of repetitive customer support tasks, and lower level advisory services. Over time, AI will enable more advanced interactions at even lower costs.
3. Mass personalization is now possible: The intersection of big data, advanced analytics, and predictive models is enabling personalization at a mass level. This supports vastly improved consumer experiences while increasing expectations of all financial services providers based on the delivery of services across industries.

Challenges to Transitioning to Conversational Banking

There are already more than 33,000 bots on Facebook Messenger and more than 100,000 bots offered by Chinese digital giant WeChat. These bots offer customer support, e-commerce guidance and other interactive experiences.


While a good first step, most bots today have limited capabilities. Some simply replicate already outdated FAQ experience, while others simply replace low level human-based customer service capabilities. The ultimate goal is to move more interactions to voice, supporting sales, advanced customer care and advice, with greater personalization, a better UI, less friction and more automation.

This is a unique example where the technology and consumer acceptance is already out there, but strong use cases have yet to come. Many voice capabilities have had initial success, only to have growth stalled due to lack of value-added capabilities or consumer education. Organizations will need to use education and value-added benefits to ‘sell’ them on new ways of interaction. Without education and consumer-centric benefits, it’s unlikely consumers will use a chatbot, let alone digital assistants as opposed to current human channels.

Another barrier to transition to conversational engagement is the siloed nature of banking. Conversations interactions will not move forward if the experience is not seamless, with all insights, from all areas of the organizations arranged around the consumer. Traditional segmentation or product ownership silos will only inhibit natural and successful dialogue.