London - Artificial intelligence (AI)
will become the primary way banks interact with their customers
within the next three years, according to three quarters of
bankers surveyed by consultancy Accenture in a new
report.
Four in five bankers believe AI will "revolutionise" the way
in which banks gather information as well as how they interact
with their clients, said the Accenture Banking Technology Vision
2017 report, which surveyed more than 600 top bankers and also
consulted tech industry experts and academics.
Artificial intelligence -- the technology behind driverless
cars, drones and voice-recognition software -- is seen by the
financial world as a key technology which, along with other
"fintech" innovations such as blockchain, will change the face
of banking in the coming years.
More than three quarters of respondents to the survey
believed that AI would enable more simple user interfaces, which
would help banks create a more human-like customer experience.
"The big paradox here is that people think technology will
lead to banking becoming more and more automated and less and
less personalised, but what we've seen coming through here is
the view that technology will actually help banking become a lot
more personalised," said Alan McIntyre, head of the Accenture's
banking practice and co-author of the report.
"[It] will give people the impression that the bank knows
them a lot better, and in many ways it will take banking back to
the feeling that people had when there were more human
interactions."
Privacy concerns
The top reason for using AI for user interfaces, cited by 60
percent of the bankers surveyed, was "to gain data analysis and
insights".
But worries over the privacy of data were cited as the top
challenge, with one in three also saying that the fact users
often prefer human interactions could also be a problem.
The report also found that, while the number of human
interactions in bank branches or over the phone was falling and
would continue to do so, the quality and importance of human
contact would increase.
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"What you're going to get on the bankers' side is access to
far better information, and that's going to allow them to
understand what your needs are and what the advice is that they
need to give you," said McIntyre.
Banks' advisory arms are an area considered one of the
ripest for technological innovation.
"The advisory business of banking is a very costly model,
and artificial intelligence can help to manage the data and to
scale the advisory model in a way that was unforseeable before,"
said Roberto Mancone, Deutsche Bank's global head of disruptive
technologies and solutions.