The Era of Intelligent Banking Transforming Lives Through Technology

Kevin Kane, Chief Technology Officer, Amar Bank

Kevin Kane, Chief Technology Officer, Amar Bank

Digital technology has affected almost all aspects of our lives. From communication networks, consumption, employment, and banking services, to buying groceries, almost everything has been digitized. Customers’ evolving lifestyle that demands practicality and speed has pushed banks to make immediate digital transformations.

In Indonesia, the demand for digital banking services continues to rise along with the number of active internet users in 2020, reaching up to 175.4 million people, which accounts for 64 per cent of the total Indonesian population. Banks are expected to provide faster, more convenient, practical, and accessible financial services at an affordable cost.

Customers’ Changing Behavior

Over half of Indonesian consumers are optimistic about a quick economic rebound, but 60 per cent of consumers have recently experienced a reduction in household income and savings. As a result, consumers are reducing their discretionary spending, and adopting new habits to save money. 9 of 10 Indonesians cite value and convenience as drivers for trying new places to shop.

We have seen five fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour, some of which will have a lasting impact, as a result of the pandemic. Shift to value and essentials are decreasing up to 40 per cent in intent to spend on most discretionary categories, Flight to digital and omnichannel increasing up to 60 per cent in intent to spend online even post-COVID-19, Shock to loyalty is increasing, 92 per cent of Indonesian consumers have tried a new shopping behaviour in the past three months. Whilst, for the Homebody economy, 78 per cent of Indonesian consumers are not yet resuming “normal” out-of-home activities. Furthermore, for the New holiday outlook, 87 per cent of households plan to maintain or decrease holiday spending.

Based on Kantar's research on COVID-19 impact on Indonesian attitudes and behaviours, their behaviour & attitude also changes due to Covid-19. Some of them which are nearly 80 per cent of Indonesians spending most of their time at home, their online behaviours are rising because they switched to more online shopping and online education, lifestyle choices impacted higher in Big Cities, and financial stress also cuts across cities such as people worrying about their job or reduced spending to save more. Although there is a concern to reduce spending and save more, household savings saw a decline throughout June to September 2020, possibly due to reduced income among people. This has caused a continuous decrease in household savings each week. However, around 50 per cent of respondents have increased spending.

Required Digital Technology

Customer expectations are rising as the adoption of digital banking increases, as we see, the pandemic has also forced people to adopt digital technology at a faster rate, further increasing the demand in the market.

In the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of online and mobile banking channels across countries has increased by an estimated 20 per cent to 50 per cent and is expected to continue at this higher level once the pandemic subsides. Across diverse global markets, between 15 and 45 per cent of consumers expect to cut back on branch visits following the end of the crisis. That’s the main reason why we need more than digital, we need intelligence. As we can see, AI-backed banks will innovate rapidly, launching new features in days or weeks instead of months. It will collaborate extensively with partners to deliver new value propositions integrated seamlessly across journeys, technology platforms, and data sets.

Banks are expanding their use of AI technologies to improve customer experiences and back-office processes. The most commonly used AI technologies are: robotic process automation for structured operational tasks; virtual assistants or conversational interfaces for customer service divisions; and machine learning techniques to detect fraud and support underwriting and risk management.

Investments in core tech are critical to meet increasing demands for scalability, flexibility, and speed. For various analytics and advanced-AI models to scale, organizations need a robust set of tools and standardized processes to build, test, deploy, and monitor models, in a repeatable and “industrial” way. Some of them are cloud computing, data management, and also API. To become AI-first, banks must invest in transforming capabilities across all of the integrated capability stacks, particularly in terms of technology: core technology and data as well as its operating model. Content technology and data contain tech-forward strategy, data management for AI World, modern API architecture, intelligent infrastructure, hollowing the core, as well as cyber security and control tiers. Meanwhile, the operating model contains autonomous business and tech teams, an agile way of working, remote collaboration, a modern talent strategy, and also culture and capabilities.

”We always put out Cloud Computing as Proven that 90 Per Cent of the Company’s Applications, Services, and Infrastructure are Already Cloud-Based”

AI has many advantages that can help banks transform digitally, starting from helping boost revenues through increased personalization of services to customers (and employees), lower costs through efficiencies generated by higher automation, reduced errors rates, and better resource utilization, up for uncovering new and previously unrealized opportunities based on an improved ability to process and generate insights from vast troves of data. Moreover, the key outcomes for banks or any financial industry are benefiting more people, at-scale personalization, distinctive omnichannel experiences, and rapid innovation cycles.

Way to Move Forward

To meet customers’ rising expectations and beat competitive threats in the AI-powered digital era, the AI-first bank will offer propositions and experiences that are intelligent (recommending actions, anticipating and automating key decisions or tasks), personalized (relevant and timely, and based on a detailed understanding of customers’ past behaviour and context), and truly omnichannel (seamlessly spanning the physical and online contexts across multiple devices, and delivering a consistent experience). Three of them will blend banking capabilities with relevant products and services beyond banking.

Amar Bank is the first digital bank in Indonesia, which has already transformed digitally since 2014 through its two flagship products, Tunaiku as a digital lending platform and Senyumku as a cloud-based mobile-only intelligent bank. Furthermore, its digital infrastructure, systems, and security have been tested and continuously improved. Amar Bank is leveraging technology such as utilizing Big Data and Data Analytics as evidenced by the success of the Tunaiku product which utilizes Predictive Data Modeling technology. We always put out Cloud Computing as proven that 90 per cent of the company’s applications, services, and infrastructure are already cloud-based. Lastly, Amar Bank continues to provide personalized services for customers through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This also can be seen in Senyumku as Indonesia’s first cloud-based digital bank that is adopting the new technology of AI to encourage good savings habits while augmenting discipline for better control of personal finances.