DBS leverages Kasisto’s conversational AI platform to launch digibank, an entire bank in the phone, in Indonesia

Kasisto, creators of the leading conversational AI platform for finance, announced that DBS Bank, a leading bank in Asia, launched a groundbreaking, mobile-led bank in Indonesia with KAI Banking powering the virtual assistant conversing in Bahasa Indonesia.

A revolutionary offering, digibank is paperless and signatureless and brings together an entire suite of innovative technology – from biometrics to Kasisto’s conversational AI capabilities – to enable customers to enjoy a whole new way of banking.

This is another milestone in the Kasisto and DBS Bank partnership that furthers DBS’ commitment to deploy Kasisto’s omni-channel, multi-lingual conversational AI platform across three countries.

With the KAI-powered assistant, digibank customers experience a seamless banking journey that is akin to having a banker at one’s beck and call, without having to speak to a call center agent – a must-have requirement for any mobile-first bank. KAI’s unique ability to hold human-like conversations ensures the experience is as natural as interacting with a teller. Since the KAI-powered assistant is an expert in banking, the conversations are accurate and contextual – helping customers manage money, track expenses, analyze spending, and improve overall financial literacy and financial well-being.

Customers are able to converse with digibank’s AI-powered virtual assistant in Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of the country. In the mobile app, customers simply type, “What is my account balance?” or, “Please show me my five latest transactions,” and the KAI-powered assistant will respond with a personal, human-like answer.

Via intelligent conversations, the assistant helps digibank customers to:

  • Improve their financial literacy and user education via a series of conversational FAQs
  • Increase their financial well-being with a contextual dashboard
  • Rapidly gain access to account information and balances
  • Locate transactions by data, merchant or category
  • Streamline customer onboarding and self-service support

“DBS is changing the face and economics of banking to make lifestyle banking a reality – giving customers the ability to bank anytime, anywhere. For the last three years, DBS has been deeply immersed in a digital agenda and put conversational AI at the forefront,” said Zor Gorelov, CEO and Co-Founder at Kasisto. “They have been an incredible partner delivering on their AI vision and leveraging KAI Banking to create entirely new banking experiences that can be customized for channels and languages. It’s exciting to see them seamlessly add new features and launch in new markets with KAI acting as their single AI-powered banking brain.”

“With the advent of technology, banking as we know it is being completely transformed. Digibank places an entire bank in our customers’ hands, freeing up their valuable time, and allowing them to ‘Live More, Bank Less.’ For DBS, digibank is a game changer, enabling us to go beyond the confines of brick and mortar to extend our reach into huge Asian markets,” said Piyush Gupta, DBS CEO. “With KAI Banking, we are able to make banking more interactive and intuitive for our customers.”

The digibank in Indonesia launch follows the successful rollout of digibank in India in April last year, which has enabled DBS to penetrate India’s retail banking market with about 1.5 million new customers acquired to date. The Kasisto and DBS partnership started with the Indian launch of DBS digibank, India’s first mobile-only bank, and very quickly, DBS leveraged KAI Banking’s agile environment and omni-channel capabilities to expand the KAI-powered assistant from mobile to the web and Facebook Messenger, and to extend from India to Singapore and now Indonesia as well as support both English and Bahasa Indonesia.

These are the world’s most mature and advanced conversational AI deployments in banking. In India, digibank’s KAI-powered virtual assistant handles 82% of customer inquiries and requests without a live agent’s involvement. Less than 18% of digibank customers in India require live chat sessions – even the smartest assistants cannot support all imaginable customer interactions. In these instances, the KAI assistant makes a seamless hand-off to a live agent and ensures a positive user experience with context and continuity. DBS digibank requires just a fifth of the resources of a traditional bank set-up due to cost-saving features such as an artificial intelligence-driven bot and virtual assistant.