Voice assistants are very popular with consumers and are in flow in their everyday life. People leverage voice technology everywhere starting from checking the weather to responding to emails. Consequently, more businesses adopt voice-enabled innovations that are in sync with this tone and amplify customers’ loyalty. However, in banking, voice technologies are still not so integrated. In today’s article we will consider if voice activated banking will be proactively used in 2023 or remain still a risky investment.
In a 2019 poll, Fiserv, US fintech and payment company, found that only nine percent of consumers who used voice activated services carried out banking functions in the last 30 days. In 2021, up to 30 percent of U.S. adult consumers owning a bank account looked at their bank account balances taking advantage of a voice assistant. In other words, we can definitely speak about a weighty increase in the percentage of voice activated banking consumers. However, the rest of the bank customers remain watchful when it comes to voice banking technologies. Hence, financial software development companies and financial organizations endeavor to make voice activated banking more attractive to customers.
What makes a difference is that voice assistants are equipped with robust security traits and involve deep banking and retail data analysis approaches as they do not store banking data you dictate to them. Eno, Capital One Bank’s assistant, also submits alerts in case of unusual or suspicious charges on an account to avoid possible bank scams and verify your banking activities.
Another reason for why people may want to try voice activated banking assistants is that they are more advanced than some other tools, e.g., chatbots, and are able to process more sophisticated and personalized requests and transactions. Bank of America’s Erica capabilities cover cutting-edge insights across customers’ banking relationship with the bank, inter alia, monitoring weekly spendings and recurring charges, receipt of bill reminders, replacement of lost cards, search for past transactions, review get personal loans applications etc. All in all, recently, Erica has outpaced 1 billion interactions with the Bank of America’s customers.
“We expect the second billion to come even more quickly as we continue to evolve Erica’s capabilities, providing clients with the shortest route to the answers they need about their financial lives,” says David Tyrie, Head of Global Marketing at Bank of America.
It is worth noting that though voice activated banking is still a novel to a large extent and was not indicated among most valuable mobile app traits, bank’s voice assistants are capable to perform four out of five most important tasks, namely:
- View statements and account balances
- Transfer funds between accounts
- Pay bills
- Compete peer-to-peer payments.
This is a strong argument in favor of voice-activated banking apps, too. All of the above-listed tasks become more effective via the use of speech. At the same time, today’s voice banking tools are not aimed at resolving the simpliest assignments only. Some banks are exercising to even more intensely integrate voice banking services into everyday life. TD Ameritrade launched an in-car service with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and Echo Auto integration. While spending time in traffic, connected drivers can monitor real-time market news, check account balances, or get a stock quote.
“In-vehicle technology offers a new type of connectivity that further breaks down barriers to accessing financial education and markets,” says Sunayna Tuteja, TD Ameritrade.
All these factors entail some rise in voice banking adoption as we mentioned in the very beginning. And due to such innovative voice-assisted services and whereas Artificial Intelligence technologies power voice-run software and evolve more, voice activated banking is taking the next step to be more ingrained in customers’ financial success.
Of course, it is worth acknowledging that voice software in banking is not always the best option for every single customer every time. There are some concerns when it comes to miscommunication and erroneous responses and safeguarding clients’ banking data. Nevertheless, the reality that several major American banks have integrated smart voice banking assistants will likely spike further adoption of voice activated banking in 2023. After all, we never know if we want a product until we try it.
