“For any consumer bank to be successful in digital banking in the digฌital era, they have to do many things that other ecommerce companies are doing successfully,” said Felimy Greene, regional head of Customer Franchise of Citi Consumer Bank Asia.

The first thing is to begin with customers and one of the many things they can do is to create a fantastic customer experience.

It is about convenience, speed and value, said Greene.

“The technology and software enable us to deliver customer experience on the phone. It is an essential,” said Greene.

The tools are around data, how to use data to create experience, how to use locations. Tools around visible and invisible security are very important, he said.

“Security and convenience don’t always go hand in hand, and making the convenience experience is not so easy,” Greene noted.

Currently, Citibank in Singapore has been testing its AI banking service via Facebook messenger.

“The bank uses an artificial intelligence engine that knows its natural language. We call it the conversation of banking; our strategy is to put Citibank where our customers spend time,” said Greene.

The customers can check their credit card bills and do transactions. It is not a full branch service but people can do certain things, he said.

The team at Singapore is now teaching AI to talk to the bank’s customers. Facebook messenger has been trialed only in Singapore initially and then the intention is to deploy it in other Asian markets, said Greene. Asked whether the AI may replace some Citi staff, Greene was not worried about the issue.

“We could allocate people to do more complex jobs,” he said.

He urged people to be very careฌful when using digital banking, especially opening an email that would appear to be from the bank. Frauds around the world start with a mail or SMS message or a phone call pretending to be from the trusted bank, added Greene.

Thanachart Bank said that as a mid-sized bank it could not ignore investment in AI. The main objective is to use AI to help staff deliver faster and better services to customers, Phitha Tanpairoj, Thanachart Bank’s vice president and head of innovation, said. It could apply to lending procedure and fraud-risk mitigation and management of nonperforming loans, he said.

He recounted a recent incident when a Thai woman lost her identity card. Later a criminal gang used her ID to open multiple accounts at several banks for the purpose of financial scamming. The bank staff were blamed for making an error in people authentication. Sometimes human judgement is weak, as bank staffs cannot pinpoint the authentication of a bank client, he said.

AI equipped with facial recognition can make judgement on people identification better than humans, he noted.

AI could give a score to potential borrowers but the authority can remain with lending staff who can overrule the AI in some cases.

By this method, borrowers can get faster loan approvals and at the same time the bank could reduce the possibility of loans becoming NPLs.

The AI also could identify potenฌtial small businesses which do not have historical business data, leading to getting loans from bank, he added.

Meanwhile, Nanthalath Keopaseuth, the deputy managing director of Banque Pour Le Commerce Exterieur Lao Public (BCEL), Laos’s largest bank by assets, said its AI project is under development. The bank wants to use AI to verify the identification of clients and support customers to do online banking.

“Our ultimate goal is to reduce the number of clients visiting our bank branches and increase the number of people engaging in online banking or contacting our call centres,” said Nanthalath.

AI could help answer enquiries and assist customers on many tasks such as pin verification or changing password. BCEL recently join forces with Thanachart to launch the QR Code payment via mobile application for Laotians who visit Thailand and buy goods and services during their stay in the Kingdom.