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Bank bots, move over: BNP Paribas is putting human advice before robots

BNP Paribas is rolling out a new digital investment tool — one where the advice is written entirely by humans.

It’s a departure from most of the new digital advice offerings that have emerged in the last couple of years; it’s not a robo-adviser — it’s not even a robot-human hybrid. It’s just a core service for the French banking giant’s high-net-worth clients brought to the mobile device. It might seem a little behind the times, but banks generally don’t apply new technologies to old services overnight, and that sort of caution is particularly applicable to BNP.

The new offering from BNP, called myAdvisory, offers message-based financial advice through the bank’s mobile app, based on clients’ portfolio and risk preferences, financial recommendations as frequently as the client allows and a chat-based trading platform. BNP is at the beginning of a slow rollout, beginning with the clients who provided the feedback on which it built the offering.

The bank has a system that monitors market activity and alerts a team of advisers when something happens that might have a significant on a client’s account, said Salvador Vidal, global head of products and services marketing for BNP’s wealth management unit. Those advisers then send that information to a team of relationship managers, who then message the affected clients, deliver that information and ask: Do you want to follow this advice?

“We’re monitoring and learning from the [customer] usage what kind of channel they prefer, when they prefer it. … We have a very open approach to that,” Vidal said. “We don’t want to take steps and force an offering on clients who don’t want it. We’re committed to co-creating products for clients, giving them those tools and, as they use those tools, making them evolve to fit their needs.”

That’s why while legacy banks and startups alike are rolling out artificial-intelligence-powered robots that dole out algorithmically created investment advice or AI-powered chatbots. BNP is just giving clients anytime-anywhere access to a human adviser. It doesn’t currently offer a robo service but has not ruled out future plans to do so.

Just as the mobile device truly disrupted the client experience in basic banking and gave customers “the mobile banking experience,” wealth management services should be following that path, said April Rudin, chief executive of wealth management marketing firm The Rudin Group.

“This is mobile wealth management, and I think that doesn’t exist,” she said. “Most wealth management and financial services firms don’t mimic and break out the client experiences like a luxury brand does. This is really an upset to the client experience and demonstrates that BNP has changed the experience instead of changing the products or services they offer.”

Citi actually revealed a mobile-first retail banking experience in December for its Citigold credit card members (clients with qualifying balances of at least $200,000) that includes access to investment with a click-to-call button for immediate access to their financial advisers. It’s not a messaging-based service like BNP’s though.

But the focus is the same: high-net-worth clients are global, mobile and want to talk to an adviser when they want to. Some want a self-service model – a robo-adviser – but probably not for their entire portfolio, and existing wealth management firms are so paper-oriented they can feel a little clumsy or antiquated compared to the smooth, fast digital experiences customers are used to today. That’s the experience BNP is trying to change.

“One thing we share with the luxury industry is the clients; we have the same clients. We’re aiming to transform the experience we give them so they understand we are what we are, which is also a luxury brand. That’s the reason why we launched this whole solution.”

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Inside USAA Bank’s digital experience playbook

Banks have begun the long, slow journey towards true customer-centric banking. It’s not like they have much choice. With commercial brands upping the ante on customer-centric moves, customers have come to expect the same from their financial service provider.

And because over 75 percent of millennials are willing to switch banks if they find a better alternative, banks that want to retain millennial customers, let alone acquire new ones, need to move from an organization-centric model to a customer-centric one. Preferably yesterday. The writing has been on the wall for years. Back in 2012, McKinsey warned that the future belongs to banks that put customers center stage in their business model.

Part of the push towards consumer-centric banking came from the bottom up. As a 2011 PWC report notes, mobile technology and social media have had a major impact on customer expectations and word-of-mouth marketing in the finance industry.

At USAA Federal Savings Bank, which serves active military members, veterans and their families, the process was reversed. Instead of digital serving as the catalyst for consumer-centric banking, the bank’s member-centric banking charter – much like that of a credit union – drives the firm’s digital experience strategy.

So while USAA is keeping an eye on certain prevailing fintech trends, like payments innovation, personalization and the rise of human-centered design, its digital experience roadmap is focused on solving customers’ needs and helping them become financially secure.

“As we evolve our digital experiences for the future, we’ve begun considering the idea of a distributed model for the digital experience,” said Melissa Ehresman, USAA’s AVP of bank digital experiences. “It will be less about a website or a mobile app as a destination and more about being where our members are and integrating with the technology around them, such as IoT and virtual assistants.”

The bank debuted its mobile virtual assistant app in 2013, and released a version of its online site in September 2016. The virtual agent is currently targeting infrequent digital users that need assistance with self service and those seeking a live agent. So far, member response has been good, with 800,000 members per month engaging with the virtual assistant. It’s been good for the bank, too. 70 percent of the members that interact with the tool don’t need to escalate to a live representative.

“We recognize the member desire to interact in different modalities, including tap, text, and speech,” Ehresman explained, noting that USAA has big plans for the virtual assistant. New technologies should enable the virtual assistant to learn member sentiment, and the bank hopes to expand adoption into more complicated or stressful tasks, like filing for insurance.

For USAA, the perfect digital experience is a three-shrimp cocktail: anticipating member needs with data, being proactive in communications with members, and ensuring the entire experience is simple and intuitive. The communication segment is particularly challenging, since USAA’s members are service members stationed across the globe.

But it is this geographical difficulty that has encouraged the bank to be a digital pioneer. “Since the military community moves more often than the average consumer, USAA found a way to move with them,” says Ehresman. The bank’s mobile app and website were created to address its military members’ financial needs, regardless of where they’re located or what time it is. For instance, the digital virtual assistant connects members to live service representatives, reducing the traditional IVR system’s number of  misrouted calls.

All of these innovations are a result of the bank’s investment in stable and scalable back-end infrastructure. By reinforcing the bank’s infrastructure and modernizing its technology architecture, USAA has been able to develop and implement front-end user experiences more fluidly.

While its members may be constantly on the move, the goal of all of USAA’s digital innovation remains the same: take care of its members.