COVID-19 and its associated containment measures are accelerating digital transformation and automation in financial services. Customer service has been under enormous pressure, and financial services firms such as Nationwide Building Society in the UK and the Royal Bank of Canada have launched chatbots to deal with the unusually high volume of requests. However, digital teams in financial services firms should remain wary of deploying chatbots and voice assistants[1] faster than their customers are ready for them, or than their systems can support.
To better understand chatbot capabilities in financial services, we evaluated the chatbot offering of over 150 global financial services firms. We also analyzed consumer sentiment and adoption of chatbots in Europe and North America. We found that although artificial intelligence is evolving fast, today's chatbots are not yet equipped to handle any, and all financial tasks.
Digital business executives planning to roll out chatbot or voice should be aware that:
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Financial services customers remain wary of chatbots and voice interfaces. Only a minority of customers feel comfortable using virtual agents for customer service in financial services. While around a third of European and American customers trust chatbots to handle simple financial tasks, almost two-thirds don't trust them to handle complex financial tasks. Similarly, only a fraction of customers uses voice assistants to interact with their financial services providers. Customer expectations, use, and comfort with chatbots and voice assistants lag behind other industries due to the complexity of financial interactions and privacy concerns.
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Most financial services firms have launched or are piloting chatbots, but functionality is still limited. Financial services chatbots are most likely to be found in mobile banking apps. More than two-thirds of top global financial services firms have a chatbot on their app, and a slightly lower number also deploys them in their online banking.