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If you’re of a certain generation – like me – I bet you still recall those days before ATMs, financial software, and Excel. Remember standing in line on a Friday afternoon before the bank closed to deposit paychecks and withdraw cash for the weekend? Or having to manually balance checkbooks with the help of a pocket calculator?

Well, those days are long gone, and have been for some time now. There’s a next generation of banking and financial technology, or FinTech, and it is already upon us.

FinTech involves artificial intelligence (AI), specifically communication AI. Belarusky Narodny Bank (BNB-Bank), a finalist for the 2021 SAP Innovation Awards, offers up-to-date, efficient, and user-friendly digital banking while also striving for sustainable innovation.

Dimensional AI Chat

BNB-Bank uses SAP Conversational AI, a chatbot-building service, with Skybuffer’s Hybrid Chat added as an extension. Hybrid Chat has preconfigured banking scenarios that are customizable, extendable, and scalable. In addition to the Hybrid Chat, Skybuffer offers analysis, reporting, and digital core integration.

Together, SAP Conversational AI and Skybuffer can boost language processing. The AI is trained in English, but translates into Belarusian and Russian so that the voice-enabled intelligent assistant distinguishes between the two. How cool is that?

Since using SAP Conversational AI and Skybuffer, BNB-Bank aligned an 80% automation level in their cognitive channels in the first months of productive use, a 100% increase in lead generation from Web and social media, and over 40 customer requests a day are served from the Web site.

Banking Benefits – From Toasters to Cash

Banks have always offered incentives to customers. Some of the vintage advertising I’ve seen tells me that U.S. banks used to give away toasters for new bank accounts so frequently that it became an expectation. I got a plastic piggy bank the first time I opened a savings account! These days, there are cash offer incentives. Though it makes sense, money takes away a certain intangible feeling from our banking experiences – it adds even more meaning to “cold, hard cash.”

Perhaps the biggest benefit with the chat is the seamless connection to a third person into the dialogue while keeping the chatbot active, making it a three-peer model between the customer, the chatbot, and an agent. The customer can communicate with the chatbot and the agent simultaneously, significantly increasing the quality of care.

Beam Me Up! The FinTech AI Future

Not only can SAP Conversational AI automate customer support, but it also can analyze topics of customer requests and channels used for their interests. Are you interested in special discounts at local businesses, investment opportunities, balance transfers and debt consolidation, or a loan? The products and services information will be served automatically.

It seems as if financial tools stay the same for long periods of time, but when they do change, it’s very large leaps forward into the future. This is just the beginning for AI. I wonder where we’ll land next.

To learn more about Belarusky Narodny Bank’s solution, view its SAP Innovation Awards 2021 pitch deck.


Rajshree Chauhan is an SAP Global Marketing contributor.