CaixaBank becomes the first financial institution to have its virtual assistant at Amazon Alexa

CaixaBank has become the first financial institution to have its virtual assistant at Amazon Alexa. Through Neo, the virtual assistant of the financial institution chaired by Jordi Gual and whose CEO is Gonzalo Gortázar, customers can make inquiries about products and services, ask for help to hire a product or receive recommendations on developments related to their interests. After this launch, CaixaBank becomes the first financial entity in Spain to be present in both Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

Through this service in Amazon Alexa, customers can make their queries to the virtual assistant, programmed to answer more than 450 questions in different languages. Neo is able to respond in a simple and didactic way, with concrete and detailed information, about the mentioned products and services of the entity through a conversation 100% by voice. More than 20,000 different forms of questioning make up the cognitive system of the virtual assistant of the entity, which allows Neo to interact with clients through natural language. Soon, the virtual assistant will also be available for imaginBank.

In 2017, CaixaBank was the first bank in Spain to apply artificial intelligence in customer service. The first experiences, with specialized chatbots, were the prelude to Gina and Neo, currently virtual assistants of imaginBank and CaixaBank respectively.

With the creation of the imaginBank chatbot -first, in the financial sector in Spain-, the bank’s experience was strengthened with tools based on artificial intelligence to offer better service to the customers of the “mobile-only” bank of CaixaBank.

At the end of 2017, with the presentation of the new mobile applications of CaixaBank and imaginBank, customers no longer needed additional applications to solve their issues, a differential fact within the financial sector. While most chatbots worked through social media channels, CaixaBank customers could access corporate applications for advice through Neo and Gina.

Now, with the activation of the service in Google Home and Amazon Alexa, CaixaBank customers can now interact with the virtual assistants through these applications as well as the corporate apps CaixaBankNow, BrokerNow, and imaginBank.

Since the launch of this virtual assistance service, more than one million customers have spoken with Neo, generating a total of more than two million conversations. All these experiences based on artificial intelligence offer a better service to the clients’ thanks to the use of advanced technology.

CaixaBank is the leading entity in retail banking in Spain, with a penetration rate of 29.3% for individual customers. The bank has close to 16 million customers in the Iberian market and 5,176 branches, the largest commercial network in the peninsula.

Technology and digitalization support CaixaBank’s business model, which continues to reinforce its leadership in digital banking with the largest digital customer base in Spain: penetration rate of 32%; 6.1 million digital customers (58% of the total number of clients of the entity in Spain) and 5.2 million customers in mobile banking. The entity holds the highest absorption quotas of its market in the world, according to Comscore. In addition, CaixaBank has a market share of 23.2% in card billing.

CaixaBank has developed projects that have marked technological milestones in the sector, such as the first commercial deployment in Europe of contactless payment and mobile payment systems, the creation of the world’s first contactless ATMs, the launch of imaginBank, the first Spain’s mobile bank, or the aforementioned development of the first artificial intelligence applications for customer service.

Thanks to this strategy, CaixaBank has ranked among the best-rated banks in the world for the quality of its digital services. In 2017, the entity received the prize The Banker, publication of the Financial Times Group, for the Best Technology Project of the Year for the launch of the imaginbotank chatbot. In addition, CaixaBank has been awarded by The Banker for the innovation of its mobile application, ‘CaixaBank Now App’, valued as the best technological project in the mobile category of the Technology Projects Awards 2018.

Likewise, the magazine Global Finance has awarded CaixaBank as Best Digital Bank in Spain, Best Digital Bank of Western Europe 2017 and Best Bank of the World in Social Media 2017. In addition, Euromoney has chosen the entity for the first time as Best Bank Digital of Western Europe.

neX, Inspire Together encompasses CaixaBank’s new Global Customer Experience area, an organizational structure created to boost innovation in the entity that seeks to advance in the digital transformation process.

This new stage, initiated last July, determines a collaborative work culture and a new way of managing processes to continue at the forefront of innovation within the financial sector. The goal is to enhance all areas with a direct focus on the relationship with the client, to meet their needs.

Source: https://www.fundssociety.com/es/estilo/caixabank-se-convierte-en-la-primera-entidad-financiera-en-disponer-de-su-asistente-virtual