UBank Human-Like AI for Mortgage Loans

FACTS

• The e-banking player UBank introduces a chatbot for home loans applications.

• Besides its specific focus, this chatbot interestingly relies on a humanoid modelMy Interactive Agent”)– designed to answer customers questions.
• Mia can provide direct answers to a large number of frequently asked home loan-related questions.
• UBank partnered with the AI software developer FaceMe to create this chatbot.

CHALLENGES

• Bet on ever more human bots. UBank also enhanced their chatbot through providing it with a sense of humour: this choice brings it closer to an actual human interaction.
• More AI-based services. Mia is UBank’s third IA-powered service in their FinTech-like ecosystem: RoboChat was designed for banking customers who might need information regarding home loans, and RoboBrain is an internal information portal for UBank’s teams.

Key Figures

• Mia is now able to answer more than 300 questions
• RoboChat would have answered nearly 50,000 questions since 2017 (roughly 86 questions per day)

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• UBank is a full-digital bank with no brick-and-mortar branches. This distinctive trait accounts for their cost rationalisation efforts and their promise to provide customers with the best possible financial conditions. Yet, they do not disregard the human approach to customer relation management and try to make room for it in their digital environment, with a new humanlike bot.
• This chatbot format is meant to include AI tech in customer advising, while relying on a human face to reassure the users. Before UBank, several institutions looked into this trend: Natwest with Cora, or SEB and Nordnet with Amelia, for instance.
• These pilots can sometimes come to an abrupt end... as was the case at Nordnet, where Amelia wasn’t successful in dealing with front-office interactions.