Is that AI in your pocket‌ making you money? Hello AI Advisor!
photo: 401kcalculator.org Big Data is being used for a whole lot of important things these days. It has the potential to cure disease, prevent cancer, feed the poor, explore outer space, predict and respond to natural disasters, prevent crime, and make our everyday lives easier and more convenient via shopping online, crowdsourcing, etc., according to Bernard Marr of Forbes.com (bit.ly/2nkjDWp). To this list I would add that Big Data helps improve transportation and communication, creates better Smart Cities and helps make our not so smart cities greener. The problem is, if you want
to benefit from all that Big Data has to offer, you have to allow access to the data — which brings us to banks. Notoriously closed and private, the banking industry — at least in the UK — was hindering innovation surrounding financial services by not making its data accessible fast enough. Via various working groups that studied the issue, the UK ordered nine banks to open up, as it were, and deliver an Open Banking Application Programming Interface (API) Standard by January 2018. Very simply put, APIs allow applications to interact with each other and provide very useful services to the public. It is how Uber interacts with Google Maps when you order a ride. Why does this matter? Because better access to financial-related data (one definition of “open banking”), is the first step of some pretty big changes to come. Combined with artificial intelligence, open banking may not only completely change how you communicate with your own bank, but it may change how you interact with all banks and related financial institutions. “Innovators consider that a combination of artificial intelligence and Open Banking will revolutionize the market for financial services, leading to many of us adopting a personal financial assistant in our pockets who […] will be able to monitor markets and let us know when we should move our money to a higher paying savings account with another provider and then, with a tap of our phones, initiate the transfer for us,” according to the UK law firm, Bond Dickinson. (bit.ly/2odAPKV).
Banks are investing heavily in new technologies Who wouldn’t want an automated, smart, seamless personal assistant in our pockets; one that can help make us money, obtain the best service anywhere, and can learn and grow as we do? Banks here in the US have
long been involved with AI, using digital assistants for example, but so far, it hasn’t made our lives much easier. However, writes Steve Culp, “Financial institutions are well aware of the potential of AI. They have observed massive disruption in other industries, as digital startups and Internet giants use AI to streamline operations and to entice customers with more personal, relevant offerings and experiences developed upon new, technologically-enabled platforms. As a result, banks are investing heavily in new technologies…” (bit.ly/2mZ4ruD) Writes Bond Dickinson, “As the old adage goes, ‘knowledge is power’ and the secure access to a wealth of personal financial data, as promised by Open Banking is already resulting in an explosion of innovation which should dramatically improve the ability for people to source better deals, to save money, to make money, or streamline processes to save time… Open Banking could give ‘robo-advice’ the platform it needs to take off.” (bit.ly/2odAPKV) So will you eventually have your own robo advisor in your pocket? Judging by the interest of the banks, the government and the public, along with the popularity of FinTech, our obsession with cellphones, and the rise of third-party payment services… as the old eight ball says, the answer definitely points to yes.
Tagged in Fintech, Banking, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data By Ava Chisling on April 6, 2017. Canonical link Exported from Medium on August 18, 2017.