Siri represents something of a paradigm shift in how we will interact with mobile devices going forward, and there are few places where this movement from keystroke to voice command will impact business more than banking. While today's voice technology in banking does fairly well in being able to recognize basic transaction commands and process rudimentary transactions, leveraging the technology and humanized tone of Siri and similar programs will allow banks to process an endless array of interactions seamlessly from the convenience of the phone.
- Where is the closest ATM where I won't have to pay a fee?
- Where is the nearest restaurant with an NFC enabled payment device?
- Please transfer $600 into my checking account from my money market account and make my mortgage payment at XYZ bank.
- When will the most recent deposits I made clear?
- Are there any merchant-funded reward offers that I am eligible for at Southfield Mall?
- Where is the closest branch with Saturday hours (assuming I would ever need to visit a branch)
Leading banking organizations will most likely also find a way to allow me to open a new account without ever picking up a pen, typing in personal information or meeting a new account representative face-to-face. By taking insight already available within my mobile applications and various social media sites I use, my banking concierge could easily fulfill the requirements for establishing a new account whenever I desired. This capability will obviously hasten the potential reduction of vast branch networks.
While Siri only works with the iPhone 4S, alternative voice recognition applications like Vlingo (available on Android as well as iOS devices) and Nuance (which recently acquired Swype) will definitely benefit from the re-introduction of Siri by Apple as well. In fact, last week, Boston-based Vlingo saw activations increase by 50% daily, according to GigaOm at a time when usage overall has skyrocketed.
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| Source: PC Magazine, October 17, 2011 |
Do you think Siri and related applications will be integrated into banking by legacy financial organizations? Will the integration be fast enough to fend off the new entrants into the industry such as BankSimple and MovenBank or even current online banking providers such as Ally?
I would love to hear your opinion.
No doubt that this is a very cool technology development. The challenge, however, is in the quality of responses, not the ability to translate the questions.
ReplyDeleteIf Siri simply evolves to become a voice-driven interface to existing capabilities, that will be nice, but not transformative.
I still believe there are relatively limited combinations of transactions and requests that are needed in the banking world compared to what Siri and other technologies are doing now. If the future allows me to conduct all of my banking without keystrokes (accurately) I think that would be transformative.
ReplyDeleteSwype. Not Skype.
ReplyDeleteGreat catch and change has been made. Thanks for reading and keeping me accurate.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I can't see this being transformative. It is interesting and fun to think about (just as implementing Kinect technology is into financial products and services is), but the use cases would be so limited (I would only use this when I am alone) that I can hardly see it taking off. Siri integration with a digital wallet might be more likely to take off...
ReplyDeleteActually, when you think about it, there is a far more limited array of questions/variables to address in the banking world than there are in the world overall. Not Siri specifically, but complete voice activated digital banking except for the most complex transactions. Given what Apple did to mobile, is it that far of a reach to see people using the voice guidance? Thanks for your thoughts and especially for your follow.
ReplyDeleteIn less than a year, your future banking concierge is a reality. Personetics Digital Banker takes personal banking to the next level. Our solution crosses all self-service channels (phone, internet and mobile device) to deliver a personalized banking experience.
ReplyDeleteWe leverage readily available data such as individual customer activity, ‘crowd’ behavior and the context of the interaction to anticipate customer intent. We employ predictive analytics behind the scenes to determine why the customer is contacting the bank and provide relevant questions/topics before they even ask a question.
We really strive to provide the best customer experience possible so that customers continue to use the mobile and online channels, which are more cost-effective for the bank. It also opens up time for live customer service agents to handle the more complicated questions.
Imagine a customer calling in the 3rd of every month to the bank’s call center asking the same question: “Did my pay check get deposited?” Now imagine that same customer either logging into online banking or using the bank’s mobile app and the conversation going something like this:
“Good afternoon George. Are you calling to see if your pay check was deposited?” George taps or says Yes. Once George’s identity is authenticated, a screen appears showing George the recent deposit of his paycheck.
Digital Banker goes one step further and provides ‘smart recommendations’. The system lets him know that he can set up an alert so that each time his paycheck reaches his account, he’ll receive an automatic text message.
And that’s just a simple scenario that Personetics Digital Banker does out of the box.