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Hello fintech friends,
I’m back from a heavily jetlagged trip to Vegas and SF for Money2020. I think the most surprising thing about the trip (beyond how the US puts ranch on everything) is that most of the biggest stands at a Financial Services conference were for agents. At first glance you’d assume this is normal. Agents are the vortex of the tornado that is AI.
But it wasn’t agentic payments… Nope. It was Voice agents. It seems modern tech companies have a customer service problem. That’s probably not such a surprise is it? Gone are the days of yesteryear when you would sit and wait (im)patiently as some poorly paid grads/overseas agencies/hungover youth would ping you from department to department. Then as your frustrations would build and build you would often to have to do it all again one more time to get your problem solved.
No, instead, modern fintechs implemented chatbots to try and wear you down before you got to begin that particular journey of pain.
But with modern AI, it seems the chatbot finally CAN solve a problem. And Fintech has sniffed that out quickly.
For the first time in human history, we have a technology that can scale service desks. One that is effective and resolution management AND cost management.
This has been a perennial problem in banking and fintech. And the solution is here.
Hey, it’s not what I expected to see at Money2020 - but if it works, it works!
If this is really true I would expect Net Promoter Scores to skyrocket. Probably the sourest taste left in anyone’s mouth results from human to human interaction with customer service. Why? Because the only thing that motivates a customer to get off their butt and try and talk to someone they don’t know is to complain or fix a very painful problem. And if you force an anxious customer through a well-designed customer evasion process masquerading as a poorly designed customer service process you get very unhappy customers.
AI can automate all but the most complex cases faster than a human can and to a much higher standard than 99% of customer service agents. Hell, the concept of a (“that’s not my”) department basically evaporates.
Fintech has needed this for a LONG time. And while it’s not sexy, the floor space at Money2020 shows it’s money well spent.
Happy reading!
- Daniel
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The Rundown
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FCA consults on crypto perimeter and DeFi guidance ahead of the October 2027 regime
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