In our series surrounding the Financial Brand Forum held in Las Vegas this past May, we have noted the top trends coming to the banking industry. From AI to AR, VR to cryptocurrency, there are a number of updates financial institutions are having to build around.
With the surge of technology in the financial space, banks are scrambling to find new ways to develop customer-friendly strategies. At the end of the day, apples to apples, it’s really about the user experience, catering to consumers and keeping them enrolled in a bank’s services. Tech has paved opportunities to be helpful, but what most people want to know is how will this affect the human element behind banking?
Humans Still Matter
Trying to fend off technology in any industry has gotten to the point where it’s detrimental to a company’s health. While some companies and industries choose to fully dive in full-on with new tech trends, some may drag their feet. Either way technology will continue to cement itself as the way things happen and get moving.
AI and machine learning are being embraced by credit unions and banks all over the world. This technology is helping to better understand consumers and personalize their experience while building personas, as mentioned in our previous posts. James Robert Lay, CEO of Digital Growth Institute, told attendees of the Forum, “The consumer journey should be at the center of everything you think and everything you do.”
According to Lay, only 17% of banks and credit unions have mapped consumer journeys, so there’s still plenty of opportunity and still a lot of education to instill. AI can help to uncover consumer behaviors attached to banking, which can assist institutions to offer better products well-suited for each individual customer on their journey. So, where do humans fit in with all this? Human error has always been a concern for banks and bankers. The idea is that instead of investing in humans, who can in turn invest in liability insurance for bankers to protect in times of professional crisis, banks can just automate everything.
The fear is that this technology will diminish plenty of jobs or the need for multiple minds to take care of the customer experience. The opportunity rests in areas where a human touch can absolutely (or should not) not be replaced, like with applications for loans. Algorithms can take care of so much, but according to Lay about 80% of consumers abandon online applications for loans and applications. This is where humans and a personable touch can assist to ferry applications along.
While AI and machine learning can help with the day-to-day tasks of a bank and help to shepherd more user-friendly applications, it’s the human element that will most assuredly always be needed to button things up. The goal of AI is to be more like humans, however it is also showing us that emotion still plays a role in making decisions for consumers.
Was this article helpful for you? Check out our other articles on trends in the banking industry in 2018:
How AI and Machine Learning Are Affecting Banks in 2018
The Rise of Multimodal Devices in the Banking Industry in 2018
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