Conversational AI automation in the banking and financial sector has enabled banks to have customer experience, engagement along with improving contact center management, operational efficiency as well as upselling and cross-selling opportunities.

1. WHITE PAPER
BANKING AUTOMATION WITH
CONVERSATIONAL AI

2. PREFACE
COVID-19 has disrupted operations and will have prolonged impacts on continuity of operations, modes of working, and
growth patterns. CIOs need to respond to the crisis with both short- and long-term actions to increase resilience against
future disruptions and prepare for rebound and growth.
Banks have long had on their agenda to streamline and automate processes. The Banks who were leaning more towards
cost-saving were exploring RPA for automation of administrative processes and those banks which were cash-rich and
were looking to better their customer experience were looking towards Conversational AI to make workflows more
efficient.
Banks, which have typically had a heavy offline interaction with customers, today, face challenges to business continuity
as employees are stranded in various locations with uncertain return dates. Apart from this, dramatic changes in custom-
er demand are putting banks under huge stress: sharp declines in demand present serious financial challenges to many
businesses, while those facing demand surges and resource shortage risk disappointing and disengaging customers.
And in times like these, the best of business continuity plans and sustainability forecasts have fallen short of making
predictions for a global lockdown and disruption.
In this white-paper, we’ll walk through the challenges faced by the banking industry and a few solutions to undertake for
the short-term and long-term.
RAGHU RAVINUTALA
CEO & CO-FOUNDER, YELLOW MESSENGER
www.yellowmessenger.com

3. GAME-CHANGING TECHNOLOGIES
CHALLENGES IN BANKING
One of the biggest challenges top executives at banks face is the gamut of transformation required. From internal
processes to customer-facing processes, all areas require digitization and automation.
As per the research done by our Analyst partner Gartner, data-driven technologies are still seen as a game-changer, but
many banks are perplexed on how to move forward?
The 2020 Gartner CIO Survey asked banking IT leadership to identify which technology capabilities they see as crucial to
their organization’s evolution. For the 2020 survey, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) were at the top of the list
and roughly equal for financial services CIOs (see Figure 1).
27%
n = 118
Q: Which technology area do you expect will be a game changer for your organization? Multiple responses allowed.
Source: 2020 Gartner CIO Survey
Note: XaaS refers to the various “as a service” models
721706_C
Artificial Intelligence /
Machine Learning
Data Analtics (Including
Predictive Analytics)
Cloud (Including XaaS)
APIs
Digital Transformation
Operational Process
Technologies
Information Technology
Automation
Cybersecurity
Blockchain
26%
24%
18%
14%
8%
7%
4%
4%
4%
0% 15% 30%
www.yellowmessenger.com

4. CONVERSATIONAL
BANKING
MOBILE BANKING
CHANNEL
USER
INTERFACE
TARGET
CUSTOMERS
DIFFENTIATION
FACTOR
AMONG BANKS
MAIN SERVICES
IN SCOPE
MESSAGIN APP*
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger,
Telegram, Wechat...
CONVERSATIONAL USER INTERFACE
(CUI)
Voice or Text based
DIGITAL AND UNDER DIGITIZES
CUSTOMERS
Heavy users of messaging apps
eg. millennials
INFORMATION, CARING AND
ADVISORY (+ TRANSACTIONS)
CHANNEL PRESENCE, LANGUAGE
UNDERSTANDING ABILITY,
PERSONALIZED (tone of voice...)
LANGUAGE & VOICE
INTERACTION EXPERTS,
AI EXPERTS
MOBILE APP
DIGITAL CUSTOMERS
GRAPHIC USER INTERFACE
(GUI)
Based on icons, menus and click
APPSTORE PRESENCE, FUNCTIONAL
COVERAGE, COMPELLING UI,
EASY-TO-USE UX
INFORMATION AND
TRANSACTIONS
UX DESIGNERS MOBILE
APP DEVELOPERS
MAIN SERVICES
IN SCOPE
During the last few years, there has been much discussion about how customer engagement in banking can better serve
and provide new product opportunities to customers, considering all the points of engagement offered by banking institu-
tions. Often-used buzzwords like “omnichannel” or “multichannel” have punctuated this discussion. Often, however,
banks find that they are unable to digest and analyze customer data and transactions well enough to support the user
interface or customer journeys.
Customers today are more available on conversational channels such as messaging apps and IoT devices. Whereas
banks have successfully transitioned to mobile banking and app-based banking.
Where banks are focussing on icons, menus, and clicks; users have moved to expect a conversational user experience on
voice and chat. Where banks are focusing on transactional coverage, customers are expecting transactional, service-relat-
ed, and even advisory services to be made available, on the channels of their choice.
CHALLENGES FACED BY THE BANK’S CUSTOMERS:
GAP BETWEEN MOBILE BANKING AND CONVERSATIONAL BANKING.
Source: Accenture Conversational Banking Insight www.yellowmessenger.com

5. CHALLENGES FACED BY BANK’S AGENTS AND EMPLOYEES:
With business continuity completely disrupted, employees are finding it hard to run business as usual, for processes that
were offline and even for the processes that were online.
Various quarantine measures and travel limitations undertaken by different Countries and cities have created big
uncertainty around employees’ return to work dates. Even returning employees are often asked to self-quarantine for
seven to 14 days. Internationally, indefinite travel restrictions by many countries are causing similar uncertainties to
business operations. Operations have either been suspended or run on a limited capacity. Since the outbreak, demand for
digital collaboration tools has skyrocketed as organizations are deploying these tools so that employees can work
remotely.
IDENTIFY USE-CASE REQUIREMENTS:
These include instant messaging for general communication, file sharing/meeting solutions, and access to
enterprise applications such as ERP and CRM. Besides supporting employees, organizations also need to
consider supporting customers and partners to an acceptable level of satisfaction.
REVIEW SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS TO SUPPORT REMOTE WORKING:
As employees are likely to work from public network connections and use personal devices, CIOs should deploy
endpoint security management onto employees’ devices.
FIND VENDORS AND TEST SOLUTIONS QUICKLY:
Opt-in for ready to implement solutions that are lightweight and can help ease your short-term bottlenecks. It is
likely that you will need a combination of tools to cover all your use-case requirements. However, you need to
prioritize solutions that are easy to implement. Sometimes, this might mean using consumer-grade applications
such as WhatsApp for messaging.
CONTINUED LOCKDOWN READINESS:
Globally, it is estimated that it could take up to 2 years to return to a new normal. In the interim, it is imperative
you establish remote working policies and extend remote working solutions to employees who usually work
from the office.
In Banks where remote working capabilities have not yet been established, CIOs need to come up with interim
solutions in the short term. They should consider the following:
HOW SHOULD BANKS APPROACH THIS ?
www.yellowmessenger.com

6. Messaging apps are now the dominant form of mobile interaction, enabling easy, fun interac-
tions on the move. Their simple, intuitive text or voice-based interfaces are loved by Millennials,
as well as by consumers typically more reluctant to embrace digital channels too. They’re also
AI-ready, offering easy integration with chatbots and cognitive agents.
HOW CAN YELLOW MESSENGER HELP BANKS DRIVE
BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND GROWTH?
Conversational channels have the potential to help banks solving this customer interaction conundrum, capitalizing on
three major consumer and technological trends:
#1 MESSAGING IS NOW THE PREFERRED CUSTOMER TOUCHPOINT
As AI continues to develop, bots are becoming more human-like in their interactions, and can
now be built with self-learning capabilities. That enables not only the automation of repetitive
customer care tasks but also low-value advisory services.
#2 AI IS BECOMING READY FOR B2C
By leveraging new data-driven insights, companies are able to offer unmatchable customer
experience and personalized digital services at a mass level. This creates competition across,
as well as within industries, as customers' "liquid expectations" means each digital interaction is
expected to be as good as the best last experience, regardless of brand or industry.
#3 MASS PERSONALIZATION AND LIQUID EXPECTATIONS
www.yellowmessenger.com

7. CONVERSATIONAL AI FOR AGENTS IN BANKING
Using Yellow Messenger’s service desk automation, you can leverage the true power of AI by closing the
automated-learning loop between human, platform and bot. Empower your agents to do more with less at hand, by:
The implications of conversational AI in banking are far-reaching, especially when it comes to Customer Experience.
Here’s how Virtual Assistants can help Banks enrich their customer experience:
PROVIDING AGENT ASSISTANCE:
Using conversational AI, you can enable your agents to be highly efficient by enabling access to customer
sentiment and past context of the conversation. Integration with CRM and service desk backend tools enables
the bot to show relevant data like past case references, customer history and journey map.Agent assist feature
searches for past resolutions by agents for similar queries to provide recommended responses which can be
audited by the agents and sent across without typing a single letter. Entire agent workflows can also be
automated and triggered by the bot on behalf of the agent at the click of a button.
BANKING VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
Virtual assistants can provide a personalized banking experience, on-demand, across channels like Web, App,
Messaging, Voice, and more. These virtual assistants can help answer FAQs and even take the role of advisory
and upsell products that are more likely to be appreciated by the customer.
CONTACT CENTRE AUTOMATION
No more long wait times on calls. No more repeating your query at multiple handoff points. With IVR automation,
customers can reap the benefit of being served in less than 1 minute and banks can enjoy cost and experience
efficiencies.
LIVE AGENT TRANSFER:
Deploy Virtual Assistants to be the first line of respondents and take the load off ~65% queries which are stan-
dard, and only handoff to a live agent the queries that really need their input. Cognitive agent routing capabilities
ensure that each ticket gets assigned to the most relevant agent based on concurrency, ticket details, agent
availability, past conversations and several other factors. Agents can either chat with the customers or use voice
and video calling capabilities to resolve issues on call. Our intelligent queue management allows you to manage
and allocate ticket flow even when agents are offline. The service desk can be customised to show relevant data
using integrations with your CRM, IT request and support systems and is available as a mobile app for agents
who do not have access to laptops at home.
CONVERSATIONAL AI FOR CUSTOMERS IN BANKING
www.yellowmessenger.com

8. CASE-STUDY: INDIA'S LARGEST FINTECH COMPANY
Fintech company is an NBFC (Non-banking financial institution) based out of Bangalore, India. Fintech
companygives out mini loans for consumers buying on e-commerce stores within minutes. The problems
faced by Fintech company was around the customer support & engagement with customers:
PROBLEM
The call volumes on the call centres was high which led to linearly scaling the call centres with number of
customers
The resolution time for each customer query was high
Re-engagement and reminders for paying back EMI through SMS had less open rates & conversions
There was no scalable channel for vendors to reach out for very specific queries when onboarding a new
customer. The definition of vendor for would be stores selling electronics (Reliance Digital, Croma, etc.)
Yellow Messenger designed an omni-channel experience on WhatsApp and Website for both, Fintech company’s
customers and vendors. On the customer side, we adopted the strategy to launch a live chat for the first 3 months on their
website and app dashboards to help gather data around the types of queries which were coming repeatedly which gave
the initial data for automation. In the live chat implementation, Fintech company was getting 3500 ~ 4000 tickets a day
which were answered by 120 agents throughout the clock. Equipped with the queries from users, Yellow Messenger built
out a customer support AI model which could answer the repeated queries and plugged the same as the first level query
resolution on the live chat, the combined solution of Chatbot + Live Chat (For fallback).
On the vendor management, to solve the problem of easily getting connected to Fintech company, we launched a verified
WhatsApp channel using the WhatsApp for Business (WABA) API and on the backend connected to the live chat module
of Yellow Messenger.
For solving the engagement problem and bringing down the EMI defaulters, we launched a WhatsApp verified account for
end customers, and prior to the date of payment, a WhatsApp notification was sent out to the end customer with the
payment link. Follow up reminders were also set up to increase the likelihood of payment without any penalties.
SOLUTION

9. With the chatbot automation kicking in post the 3 months live chat period, with 40 agents, Fintech company
was able to handle 5000+ tickets on any given day. The reduction of the number of agents happened due to the
COVID lockdown in India, and with the automation in place, Fintech company was able to manage all the
volumes coming in without seeing any drop in the NPS.
The query resolution time for the end customer came down by 75% as there was no agent queue, and the bot
was able to provide instant responses to the customer queries
The NPS for vendors increased drastically and the query resolution time came down by 75% (2 to 3 minutes vs
compared to 10 ~ 15 minutes)
With the WhatsApp push notification, the payment without penalties increased by 20% and the customer
satisfaction with the brand went by up 45%
The impact of the platform and the solution is multifold:
IMPACT
Tickets
5000 per day
Query Resolution Time
Lowered by 75%
Payment Realisation
Increased by 20%
NPS Score
Increased by 45%

10. CASE-STUDY: HDFC BANK
HDFC Bank’s personal loan department had a problem of high drop-offs on the personal loan page when
moving from informational page to application page for personal loan. The other hurdle faced by the
personal loan team was a lot of unqualified leads were coming into the system and reducing the productivity
of the overall engine as HDFC Bank’s rep had to make each call to understand the requirements of the person
applying for loan and basis the information provided were to mark if they were qualified or not.
PROBLEM
Yellow Messenger provided a system which can collect, qualify and push the right leads to the lead management systems
through chat & voice automation. Yellow Messenger deployed a banner bot on the same information page for customers
to easily understand the product offerings by asking their questions in realtime to the chatbot (Ex: What is the interest rate
for education loan and are there any concessions?). The chatbot also has an intelligent loopback to get information about
prospects requirements and contact details. Once the prospect applied for a loan, the Yellow Messenger platform would
trigger an automated outgoing call to qualify if the lead is valid or not. Based on the call, the lead would be pushed into
HDFC Bank’s lead management system (LMS) wherein the bank reps could work on only qualified leads.
SOLUTION
The engagement on the information page with the banner chatbot grew by up to 30% and the number of leads generated
on the same microsite for personal loan grew by 10X for the top of the funnel, and 30X for the qualified leads which were
getting pushed into their system. The revenue generated & impacted through the bot per month was upwards of $2M.
IMPACT
Revenue Generated
$2M per month
Leads Collected
10X for TOFU
Leads Qualified
30X

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Contact@yellowmessenger.com