DBS Bank subsidiary POSB is using technology from Kasisto, the firm behind Apple's Siri AI, to enable natural language conversations with customers through Facebook Messenger.
Customers can chat with POSB to enquire about the bank’s products and services via the AI-driven 'POSB digibank Virtual Assistant'. Since launch on 13 January, the majority of the enquiries centred on the bank’s branch locations and foreign exchange rates.
Jeremy Soo, head of consumer banking group (Singapore), DBS Bank, says: “With ‘POSB digibank Virtual Assistant’, customers can converse with us as easily as they would with their contacts - no more calls and no more waiting in line just to get a response. Customers can also soon look forward to conducting their banking transactions via this service.”
He says the bank has spent over 11,000 man hours training the virtual assistant, with actual questions and responses taken from the bank’s customer centre. As the bot learns, more functions will be added, including balance enquiries, fund transfers and card payments.
Soo says chat banking will also be launched in DBS’ other key markets, with plans to extend this service to other mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat in the future.