Driven By Digital Pressures, Traditional Banks Are Learning “New Tricks”

Digital technology could usher in a golden age of digital banking, with artificial intelligence providing consumers with financial advice and other customized guidance. 

“We suddenly have the technology with AI and so forth to provide a bank account that can actually help you manage your money,” said Brett King, futurist and author of the book Banking 4.0 

King made his remarks in an interview with Huawei Executive Editor-in-Chief Gavin Allen at the company’s Intelligent Finance Summit in Shanghai on June 7 and 8. 

“The early wallet systems that we see today, like [China’s] Alipay and WeChat pay, and Paytia in India and Kakao in South Korea, will evolve into AI-based bank accounts that really help us with our day-to-day money management. This will be a trend we’re going to see with banks around the world, augmenting human advice with AI.”

Meanwhile, banks are being pushed swiftly into the digital future, equipping their offices and data centers with the latest AI and re-engineering their operations to let customers conduct most or all of their business online. 

“It was very difficult in the beginning of the pandemic,” said Paul Siy, Senior VP and Chief Technology Officer at BDO Unibank, the largest bank in the Philippines. “We did not really have any tools to provide digital services or even give our staff the ability work remotely.”

Siy said a cultural shift was needed to jolt the bank into a new way of operating. Once that was done, BDO Unibank started focusing on making better use of AI: spotting and fixing problems in the network before they could spread, and making chatbots that sounded like actual humans. 

The latest interviews and other content can be found on the Transform Talks page of the Huawei media center web site. 

Source: Huawei