The MD of Visionet Systems India and the Global Head of BFSI Business explains how AI is streamlining business transactions
Banking and financial services have come a long way from the era of tedious paperwork, time-consuming red tape and confusing transactional processes. Even though online banking was a significant breakthrough in the mid-1990s in India, its benefits were not fully reaped by the rural and underserved citizens in the remote parts of the country. With rapid digital transformation post the COVID-19 pandemic, there is hope that new technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) will make banking accessible to even the last-mile customer. Banks can create customer profiles through AI, and enable anyone with a smartphone to obtain credit and do basic banking even in areas where there are no branches. Satellite images can further help banks in estimating past and future agricultural income and offer appropriate credit assessments to farmers.
Even globally, rapid digitisation has changed the BFSI (Banking, Finance, and Insurance) industry radically. A 2020 article by McKinsey & Company states that AI could potentially unlock about USD 1 trillion in value generation in value BFSI. Global Markets Insights also reports how AI in the BFSI market size exceeded USD 15 million in 2021 and is slated to grow at over 35% CAGR between 2022 and 2028.
Alok Bansal, MD Visionet Systems India and Global Head of BFSI Business has noted this shift over the last few years and observes, “AI, and other cutting-edge tech offerings such as cognitive systems, robotics, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) have redefined the BFSI sector in an unprecedented way. They have enhanced customer experience with faster processing of loans, chat solutions and engagement tools. Smarter technologies are also helping us to protect sensitive banking data, identify fraudulent practices, automate business operations, save costs and speed up document processing.”
New technologies can also analyse the customer’s past credit histories and prevent future payment defaults, and systematise areas of distribution, pricing, and claims.” And of course, once businesses are streamlined for the better, revenue streams are also boosted,” Alok adds.
He also feels that all banks, including legacy institutions, must leverage digital solutions to serve unbanked and underbanked citizens and bridge financial literacy gaps. He notes, “In 2021, India’s rural population was 900,239,774 and AI can help banks to create safe and accessible banking solutions for this underserved demographic. When every rural Indian is able to access help, advice, and experience effortless banking right at home, we would have achieved a financial revolution in the real sense.”
(The author is Mr. Alok Bansal, MD, Visionet Systems India and the views expressed in this article are his own)
