Speech recognition and voice technology are slowly becoming popular around the world. From large enterprises to common people, everyone wants to greatly benefit from voice-based solutions.
The reason why voice technology is being widely used is that it is very efficient and straightforward. Also if you are using a voice assistant then you may get easy access to any website or any other solution right at your command. People love that and that’s why the use of smart voice assistants has increased exponentially. Whether at the home or in the office, people are actively using voice assistants like Siri, Cortona, Alexa, and more to simplify their daily tasks.
According to a report, there were 3.25 billion digital voice assistants at the service of people in the year 2019 alone which was expected to grow to 8.4 billion by the year 2024. So, voice technology is here to stay. It has not only proved to be effective in homes but at offices too. And it is penetrating its way to further prominent sectors in the global market including finance.
Most of the businesses who leverage voice technology might not imbibe fintech into their application but for the ones which need a payment gateway, they must know what fintech is and how it can work for your organization. The magic of voice technology now streamlines the business operations and conducts market analysis for financial institutions. For example, Morgan Stanley, a banking and financial services giant has developed an effective voice-enabled app that allows users to obtain critical market insights. TD Ameritrade has also built a voice environment for their users that enables them to get information related to market and stock price at their command.
The finance companies are benefiting from the voice assistants but what does it mean by voice technology, where is it used in the finance sector and what’s its future? We will be discussing all these things in this article. So, let’s give it a go then.
What is voice technology and speech recognition?
Speech recognition and voice recognition technology are some of the emerging and most powerful technologies. And yes, both the terms do not have the same meaning. They are different from each other. Many people are seen to use these words together. So, to clear the confusion let us understand what these terms mean.
a. Speech Recognition
As the term, speech recognition itself suggests that in this concept, the technology aims to recognize the speech of the user and show them the perfect results that match their query. Speech recognition technology is programmed to focus on the words spoken by the user and try to bring the best relevant results so the problem of not getting the right word is solved. This type of technology can prove to be very helpful to physically challenged users.
b. Voice Technology
Contradictory to Speech recognition, voice recognition technology focuses on the voice of a particular user and not their words. This technology is specially encoded to authenticate the users by verifying their voice. Voice technology can come in quite handy if your primary concern is the security and privacy of the user.
Voice Technology in Banking: Use Cases
We can speak all about how advantageous voice technology is for the finance industry but can’t take a closer look without considering some examples. Hence, we are going to discuss some use cases of voice technology in fintech.
1. Voice-based accounting services
Voice-based accounting services are widely used by many banks around the world. Banks and financial institutions allow their customers to use a voice-based app through which they can access their account details and perform various accounting operations at their voice command.
One of the popular examples is Westpac Banking Corporation in Australia as they have started using a voice-based assistant to help their customers. It’s like they have integrated Alexa with their users’ day-to-day operations. Yes, that’s true. The digital marketing team of Westpac bank did integrate all of their accounting services with Alexa. This enables the customers to access their bank accounts at their voice commands.
Moreover, Alexa also helps the users to stay informed with all the trending financial news. And what’s more to say? The bank is already working very hard to integrate its services with Google Assistant and Apple Siri so that their mobile apps can become more effective.
2. Voice-based transactions
Voice-based transactions are another best use case of voice technology. Wouldn’t it be great if you can carry out all of your basic financial transactions at your voice commands? For example, if you want to transfer any amount, you just need to tell the app in a clear tone to transfer the “n” amount to the “X” account.
If you are looking for an example then there is a company called Garanti in Turkey. It is a part of the global brand SSVA and has launched a mobile app called Mobile Interactive Assistant. The user can get financial services like money transactions at their voice commands using this voice assistant. And that’s not all. It also allows the users to buy and sell foreign currency and find out the latest exchange rates effortlessly.
3. Biometric security
Among all the use cases of voice-based applications, Biometric Security looks like one of the most promising segments. Security will always remain the most important aspect of any global business market, especially in the finance sector. So, developers have started using the latest voice-based apps to protect your sensitive information from various types of threats and cyberattacks.
For example, Nuance is a robust biometric engine that can recognize a person’s voice very precisely even if a person is logging into the app after a very long time. This way, the app is aimed to restrict any third party to get access to the user account details and other critical information. Biometrics has already become an innovative way of security in recent years.
How Voice Assistant changes the financial industry?
The implementation of voice technology in the global market has indeed paved a way for some robust and innovative solutions in the finance sector. Professionals here are leveraging it to enhance their customer support services and offer new methods of payments, billings, and more for the users. And believe me, it’s just the start. The number of voice-based applications will rise with the advent of time. There is a possibility that it might be able to unlock a new level of the customer journey. But for now, we are going to discuss some of the areas where the magic of voice technology is already doing its miracle.
1. Information
The financial industry is full of valuable data and relevant resources that can be considered very useful for the customers. But the tiresome task here is to get access to all these valuable data and insights. If it wasn’t for the voice technology, banks, and other financial institutions would not be able to provide their customers with valuable market insights and informative blogs on their website right at a voice command.
Voice technology is evolving with time so it won’t be an exaggeration in saying that in the future, you might access more information in real-time using a voice-based application. But as the technology grows, the vision of providing a seamless personalized experience in the financial services sector gets bigger and bigger. All this fast information is pushing this vision forward. Apart from the market insights, the enhanced version of voice-based apps will also help the users to know what a particular trend suggests to the user based on their past transactions.
2. Banking
Banking is another area where this technology is widely used and has been delivering promising results for some time now. Voice-based banking allows users to enhance their financial transactions and their security. Many top brands like Capital One and Ally Bank have started offering voice banking services which are widely accepted and gained enough popularity among their customers. It doesn’t matter if you are entering a PIN or authenticating your own identity through voice recognition technology, users all around the world are now ready to adopt all kinds of voice-enabled applications
Speaking of adopting the voice-enabled apps, the data connection is said to be one of the most important aspects of all. It means that you not only get to access your account and get financial information but also make informed decisions over your spendings and expenses.
Ally Bank and USAA are leveraging voice banking to offer consulting services to their customers for how to manage their business, personal expenditures, and costs effectively. So, if voice-activated apps keep evolving and make their way up to the global market then we can say it without having any second thoughts that they can be beneficial to the users along their financial security journey. This ought to make voice and mobile banking services more popular, increasing the brand value as companies leverage them.
3. Advisory
Voice-activated banking has gone far enough from providing just basic account information. It can also offer excellent advice and personalized suggestions for where to invest and which stock to pick. The example of J.P. Morgan is worth mentioning here. J.P. Morgan has integrated its services with digital assistants like Alexa that has allowed their customers to get access to the information of their asset’s price in real-time.
The evolution in voice recognition technology allows the financial advisory model to disrupt the finance industry as well as forcing the service to function at various levels. The financial organizations that have started using this technology are now making their customers ask questions on finance and market trends. To which, financial institutions and banks provide valuable insights, market reports, and more to advise their customers to make the right kind of investments depending on their financial position.
The Future of Voice Recognition
Now, at the end of the article where we discussed the use cases of voice technology, its benefits, and how voice tech is changing banking services. But what about the future of this technology? This question can arise naturally in the minds of those business owners who are considering investing in voice-based services.
Since their inception, voice-enabled mobile banking technologies have been growing constantly and gaining popularity rapidly. As the voice-based service becomes more advanced, it opens up new aspects of finance and accounting, like advisory functionality, transaction features, account features, and more.
Such technologies and tools also help fintech companies to serve their clients in better ways and enhance their customer experience. This also allows the banking customers to get an edge over other people. Everything from paying bills to getting market insights, banks, and other financial operations are seeing great improvements while giving new heights to customer experience and service satisfaction. In short, the future of voice technology is very bright and if you don’t act soon, you might get left out.
