CHATBOTS

'Banking' on chatbots to woo customers

creativeteamatniki Creative team at Niki.ai with CEO Sachin Jaiswal seated second from left

Indian startups like Niki.ai, craft AI-fueled chatbots for banks' e-commerce forays

Forget old fashioned chat and interactive voice response! Banks and financial institutions in India are gradually upgrading their Web and mobile phone-based customer interfaces by leveraging Artificial Intelligence tools like chat bots.

HDFC Bank has introduced OnChat, a chatbot in Facebook Messenger to help users pay utility bills, avail travel services or make movie bookings. In the 8 months since the Artificial Intelligence -driven tool was launched, the bank has seen a huge spike in customer acquisitions, since one in four users are non-HDFC Bank customer, explained Nitin Chugh, Group Head, Digital Banking at HDFC Bank, at a media event earlier this week

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The chatbot which replaces conventional mechanisms like Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is clever enough to understand language combos like Hinglish and sends personalized reminders and notifications to customers. For its foray into 'conversational banking' HDFC turned to Bengaluru-based startup Niki.ai whose creative team harnessed Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to craft the tool. It is a fast learner: if after two attempts the chatbot fails to understand the user, it ploughs back the experience to refine its tools. 

Said Niki.ai CEO and founder Sachin Jaiswal: "In partnership with HDFC group companies, we are also working on creating an insurance bot and a stock broker which will take the overall banking experience to another level, through simple conversations.”

For its existing banking customers, HDFC Bank offers another chatbot, EVA—Electronic Virtual Assistant—on all its digital platforms including Web and mobile. The banking bot was built by Senseforth ASI Research, whose other clients include ICICI Bank and ICICI Lombard.

Niki.ai has also developed a chat-based commerce solution for Infosys Finacle, the banking solution from EdgeVerve, an Infosys -owned company. The chatbot named Niki will be offered by Infosys Finacle, as a smart-purchasing tool along with its suite of banking solutions. Already some 25 merchants such as Uber, Ola, BookMyShow, redBus, Cleartrip, Housejoy are leveraging the Niki bot.

Tech Note (Wikipedia): A chatbot is a computer programme which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. Such programmes s are often designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner.

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Topics : #banking

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