Introducing AI Chatbots in FinTech Industry
Expansion of Chatbots
Chatbots have become a major trend in the last 3-4 years, especially in the fintech sector. This rise is driven by advancements in data science and cloud computing, providing vast computing power. Another key factor is the new generation of consumers who prefer chatting and self-service over voice calls and emails.
The need to automate repetitive tasks, especially in customer support for large enterprises, sparked the emergence of chatbots. The adoption of Artificial Intelligence, particularly Natural Language Understanding (NLU), enabled chatbots to classify large data sets and automate conversational workflows, surpassing earlier rule-based solutions.
Chatbot development has expanded their usage scenarios and business applications. Modern chatbots can now handle complex requests with context and intent changes during conversations.
Enterprise AI Chatbot Solutions in FinTech
Compared to other industries, financial institutions generally have the necessary resources to respond to fintech disruption. As a result, the banking sector is one of the biggest beneficiaries of chatbot implementation. Chatbots are not limited to first-line customer support; they also assist with account, asset, and payment management, and even serve as personal financial advisors.
Implementing in-house chatbots for banks and financial institutions with extensive branch networks offers additional benefits. These include providing an easily accessible internal knowledge base, supporting personnel education and training programs, and assisting HR departments.
Many major banks, such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and HSBC, have developed their own proprietary chatbot solutions tailored to their specific business needs and infrastructure. However, these fintech solutions are often too specialized to be adopted market-wide.
The other path was chosen by software development companies – they initially focused on building fintech products that could fit business models of multiple banks. In some cases, chatbot serves as a complementary solution to their core software infrastructure (ERP/CRM). But still, many companies (that mostly emerged during the last 3-4 years) are just focused on building chatbots only. Their cooperation models range from the Service model – “we build a custom chatbot for you” – to the Product model.
The alternative fintech strategy that is worth mentioning is the development of chatbot SaaS platforms, which offer the use of their API and middleware with incorporated AI layer.
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Role of Language in Chatbot Development
Selecting Language for Chatbot Platform
From a linguistic perspective, most chatbot platforms prioritize supporting languages with the largest populations and market coverage. For the Americas, the UK, and Australia, this means focusing first on English and Spanish.
Specifics of German Chatbots
To date, few fintech chatbot platforms focus on the German language and the DACH market. This is partly due to the semantic complexity of the German language and the regional differences between Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Although the DACH market is substantial, it is smaller compared to markets dominated by English and Spanish. As a result, fewer chatbot-oriented fintech companies prioritize this market.
Summary: How to Implement AI Chatbots in FinTech
The most widespread chatbot applications in fintech are:
- customer support automation (CSA);
- chatbot-based personal financial advisors;
- FAQ automation: offering access to the internal company knowledge base through chatbots;
- employee onboarding & training chatbots;
- HR bots for employee evaluation procedures, gathering feedback, and collecting intra-company survey responses.
There are two main approaches to chatbot development in banking and finance:
- developing own proprietary chatbot solution;
- customizing a platform-based chatbot.
Extending the list of languages supported by the chatbot can bring unforeseen challenges to the task at hand. The next points should be considered while building multilingual chatbots:
- English and Spanish languages are the most popular among chatbots both because of their linguistic simplicity and wide usage.
- After English and Spanish, fintech companies mostly focus on the local market and select the language based on the regional specifics.
- French and German chatbots are an untapped market for fintech institutions.
Talking about the last, while being good opportunities, the segments pose challenges due to their high linguistic complexity. Developing French and German chatbots requires unconventional approaches to intent recognition and state-of-the-art methods of natural language processing (NLP).
Abto Software is a trusted provider of AI-driven chatbot development services – our experts will help you build and carry out the most efficient chatbot implementation strategy for your business. Fill out the form below to schedule a consultation or receive a demo of our chatbot solution.