Finance chatbot builder snags big clients, hits profitability after 18 months

Let’s say you’re about to get married and you want to open a joint bank account with your future spouse to foot the bills, pay for the mortgage, and buy some furniture for the new house. And just like most people, the first thing you do is do some desk research on the internet.

Minutes into your search, however, you’re bombarded with dozens of options, all proclaiming the best interest rates in town. Individual bank websites don’t help, either.

“Websites are essentially static online catalogs. [They put] the control of navigation in the hands of the users. Now, you have someone who’s not financially savvy [visiting] these websites and trying to pick out something that’s suitable for him. That’s just not the way it should work,” says Chuang Shin Wee, CEO and co-founder of chatbot builder Pand.ai.

Chuang Shin Wee, CEO and co-founder of chatbot builder Pand.ai / Photo credit: Bangkok Bank Innohub

When it comes to financial advice, human financial advisors are hard to beat. But for everything else, chatbots are more than capable to fill the gap. And that’s where Pand.ai comes in.

Incorporated in July 2016, Pand.ai (which is Malay for clever) is a Singapore-based AI startup that specializes in chatbots for financial institutions in Asia.

Chuang used to be the head of digital at Standard Chartered Bank in China. His co-founder, David Low, gives lectures on machine learning at the National University of Singapore when he’s not busy being Pand.ai’s chief data scientist.

Here’s the problem the duo is trying to solve: Browsing for financial products and services on static websites does not translate to the best user experience, especially for those who are not financially savvy. “If you are putting a lot of your money to buy something you cannot even touch and feel, then human psychology [kicks in] and you become more cautious. You ask questions, which is why we prefer to interact with humans,” Chuang explains.

However, having a full-fledged call center is costly for financial institutions, let alone the extensive training required. A chatbot, then, is the perfect middle ground.

To that end, Pand.ai works with financial institutions to design, develop, test, and run chatbots that are baked into their websites or social media pages. This allows financial institutions to engage potential customers, address their needs and concerns, as well as market a range of products and services.

More conversations on Facebook are getting automated. / Photo credit: Unsplash

To Chuang, using chatbots or digital call centers is nothing new, especially in the financial services industry. However, there’s a severe mismatch between desire and result. Based on his own experiences working in a bank, Chuang saw firsthand the groundswell of support for digital financial services. Ironically, there’s little to show in terms of results.

“You will be hard-pressed to find a bank where a large percentage of its transactions are done through [an] online platform,” he says. “The reason for this is that chatbots, as they are now, are just not very good at recognizing what users are saying and addressing their needs.”

The right bot at the right time