OCBC uses voice assistants to make banking simpler for consumers

OCBC Bank has launched its latest digital innovation using Siri, Apple's virtual assistance. The brand claims to be the first bank in Singapore that enables its customers to do their day-to-day banking and make cashless payments using just voices.E-payments can be made instantly to any bank account in Singapore, including bank accounts not linked to the PayNow service. The latest innovation is in direct response to how customers are increasingly using voice assistants on their mobile devices. In October last year, OCBC Bank rolled out a similar service to business banking customers.Using the latest version of the OCBC Mobile Banking app, customers are able to check their bank balances and credit card details by simply saying, “Hey Siri, what’s my balance?”, or “How much money do I have in my bank account?”, or “What is my credit card spend?”. The transaction is then required to be authenticated with the customer's fingerprint or facial recognition.Similarly, funds transfer can be done through the latest OCBC Pay Anyone app by telling Siri whom to send the money to and the amount, followed by validating the transaction using the customer's fingerprint or facial recognition.The voice banking innovation is developed by OCBC Bank’s in-house mobile developer and e-business teams. It is made available to all OCBC Bank customers using iPhone devices running at least the iOS11 software and the latest versions of the OCBC Mobile Banking and OCBC Pay Anyone apps. Authentication using facial recognition is only available on iPhone X devices.According to Aditya Gupta, head of e-business, OCBC Bank, Singapore, the latest service marks a major milestone in banking as it brings the brand one huge leap close to making natural language voice-actived banking and payment a reality.“This is the new digital – conversational, more natural and faster access to banking! This is just a start – we will continue to embed ourselves in our customers’ everyday lives using voice-powered AI tools which they will be able to use for more banking transactions such as bill payments, money management and common servicing requests in the future!” Gupta added.