India's YES Bank has launched banking service on WhatsApp, using a chatbot interface to offer over 60 financial products over the messaging app.
Utilising cognitive computing from Microsoft Azure, the YES Robot banking assistant has been trained to answer over 10,000 related banking queries. The bot uses Microsoft's natural language processing engine Luis (Language Understanding Intelligent Service), combining conversational AI with extensive financial knowledge to make carrying out banking tasks simpler.
Customers can now use WhatsApp to check account balances, order cheque books, report unauthorised transactions, redeem rewards points, connect with online and telephone call centres, and apply for 60+ banking products. Users can also get an overview of Covid-19 relief packages and donate to the PM Cares Fund.
Ritesh Pai, chief digital officer, YES Bank, says: “We are pleased to offer the convenience of round the clock banking assistance on WhatsApp, a platform that customers are familiar with and use frequently. The banking requests from customers will be addressed on a real-time basis through the messaging platform, thereby making banking more efficient."
Future integrations of the YES Robot interface with Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri are also on the cards.
YES Bank local rival Icici this month announced that it had attracted over one million customers to its WhatsApp banking platform, which was launched just three months ago.