How Voice Assistance Will Change The Financial Services Industry
Although the advent and subsequent rise of new technology such as voice assistants has created justifiable privacy and compliance concerns, this new frontier is still making its way into the sector and shifting how it operates.
To-date, voice technology has been used by financial institutions to help support customer service needs and provide a new channel for actions such as paying bills, transferring money or buying stock. Despite this auspicious start to voice technology usage in the finance world, there’s a much more valuable manifestation to come. As voice platforms mature and consume more and more user data, their capabilities will deliver on personalization for users which will unlock new levels of value for their financial journeys. The following explores three areas that are ripe for evolution.
Build better voice apps. Get more articles & interviews from voice technology experts at voicetechpodcast.com
Information
There is no shortage of finance news briefings and experiences available on voice-enabled devices, but we are starting to see financial institutions establishing themselves as the go-to source for market information or firm perspectives. Morgan Stanley, for example has created a voice application that lets customers easily access their market insights. TD Ameritrade was also quick to create an experience for users to retrieve market and stock price information via voice. While these are logical first forays into the new medium, there is a future where market information disseminated on voice becomes much more valuable to users.
As voice assistance and user adoption matures, we can expect voice assistants and their platforms to become increasingly tied to more of our data. With this in mind, and particularly for financial institution customers, one can envision how these simple one-ways information dissemination experience will push forward to become personalized. A market insights voice experience can not only provide the latest POV, but begin to advise on what it means for a user based on their finances and other data points. Keeping up with the markets is important, but what customers really want to know is ‘what’s it mean for me?’
Banking
One of the most widely adopted usages of voice technology in finance today is enabling banking transactions. Checking balances, retrieving payment information, paying bills, etc. Early leaders in this area include Capital One, Ally Bank and others. While a seemingly simple functionality, the variety of experience being created show a consumer willingness to engage in financial transactions through the new technology, something journalists were initially skeptical of. Whether it’s via a PIN number entered in a companion app or Voice ID verification, users are using these new voice assistants and trusting them with sensitive information.
The key to progressing in this space is data connection yet again. Ally Bank and USAA have made strong strides in this space by not only offering information on account balances and the like, but acting as a consultative assistant that can let you know if it’s ok to spend money on a purchase or tell you how long you would have to work to afford something. This is a great first step toward making these assistants true banking companions. From here, as more data is ingested, we can expect to see voice experiences focused on banking interactions positioned to be goal-based companions that help users along their financial security journeys.
Advisory
Increasingly, we should expect our live-in digital assistants to move from basic functionality to providing personalized and nuanced recommendations based on our information. In finance, this shift will eventually disrupt the Financial Advisor business model and force the service to operate at a different level than is needed today. As early as 2016, UBS was piloting a service through Amazon’s Alexa that would allow clients to ask financial questions and receive market positions from the firm. Since then, others have joined in creating a client experience through voice. One notable example is J.P. Morgan’s Alexa experience which allows clients to retrieve reports and soon, asset pricing information.
All of this points to a reality where lower-level advisor tasks are going to be outsourced via technology, but this shouldn’t necessarily throw current Financial Advisors into a depression. Voice technology can be a helpful bridge from client to advisor, handling basic queries, providing firm-sanctioned market opinions, and generating personalized news. Allowing users the convenience of retrieving all this information at-home sets them up to come to advisors more informed and prepared for a deeper, more complex conversation.
Although finance is thought to be one of the more dense and monotonous subjects for users to engage with (along with insurance and tax management), voice technology is providing a new opportunity to make content digestible and engaging. Early adopters do not seem to be afraid of interfacing with digital assistants to share personal information and the devices will only become more useful the more they are used and the more data they have. In a market where “one in six millennials have saved $100,000 or more” (source: Bank of America’s Better Money Habits Survey) but yet “66% of 18–29 year olds say investing in the stock market is scary or intimidating” (Source: Ally Financial Survey) there’s a tremendous opportunity to activate participation.
