Robots instead of bankers? People will not completely disappear from banks, says Moneta
The banking world is focused on digitization and speeding up services. Are classic brick-and-mortar bank branches awaiting restrictions, or even their end?
The complete end of branches will certainly never happen. And I’m not even a supporter of banks being able to exist without a physical presence. The client needs to be able to always consult personally about his financial matters and options. There are still people who haven’t jumped on the digital wave and don’t even withdraw large amounts of money from an ATM. Therefore, all our branches still have a cash desk.
Is interest in the branches predominant among the older generation, or do young clients also visit them?
It cannot be said that the demand is only among the older generation, but of course their interest in branches prevails. We are a bank with a strong presence in the regions. We have branches in cities with a population of ten thousand or more. Since these are smaller towns, people go there to discuss their financial decisions with their particular banker whom they trust.
So is cash still dominant?
Certainly yes in the Czech Republic. If we don’t quickly start approaching countries like Sweden, where cashless payments already significantly prevail over cash, then money will play for a long time. In addition, we are convinced that we must ensure safe storage of cash and subsequent withdrawal. For us, this means expanding the network of deposit ATMs. We are focusing on this and we are helping Komerční banka, with whom we share ATMs. But for example, we don’t see enough use for ATMs and we don’t think about them.
You have more than a hundred branches where you make more use of automatic deposit and withdrawal machines. Is the classic cashier and other employees waiting for layoffs?
We are changing the structure of the branch network by strengthening the advisory positions of bankers, and over time there will be fewer traditional cashiers. Where the number of cash transactions falls below a certain threshold, we solve this by shortening the opening hours for traditional cash registers and using more machines. In our network, at some branches, we have cash registers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the clientele has gotten used to it. But we don’t want to just have branches without cash registers. I am convinced that the client expects a person in the branch, not just a machine.
What will you focus on now in terms of service development?
There are still many things that can be improved. For example, we send each customer an email to evaluate our services and experience. We analyze the final information and work backwards. In the new branch concept, we significantly strengthen discrete meeting places where the client and I need other topics that cannot be arranged and for which a consultant is needed.
But, for example, you have already launched an online mortgage product…
In this case, we focused mainly on the digitization of service operations. It is possible to set up a mortgage online, but still 99 percent of clients want to find an expert who will discuss with them whether their decisions are correct. Even though we are digitizing mortgages, this market has practically stopped at the moment. That is why we also have experts who are able to advise interested parties personally.
How do you increase interest in new mortgages in your bank, currently affected by the crisis and rising interest rates?
At the moment, the market has reoriented a lot towards improving the quality of existing housing. Clients deal far more with renovations, insulation and investments in green forms of energy. They simply try to reduce the energy load as much as possible and thus save significantly on energy.
Is the interest in the branches significant compared to previous years?
When it comes to mortgages, yes. It’s not so much about reducing interest as it is about waiting to see how house prices and interest rates develop this year.
How does your system work in the case of branch connections?
We therefore recommend using the parent smart bank also in the procedures at the branches so that the change of client parameters is equally fast everywhere in the digital space. To avoid creating a Chinese wall between digital channels and the branch network. We have already digitized a number of documents and thanks to this we do not have to print any forms, for example. Everything is stored in internet banking. Thanks to this paper saving alone, we saved two million crowns last year.
In addition to branches and the Internet, call centers are another point of contact. Do you see a way in them even after the pandemic, when their use has increased significantly?
Call centers certainly still have a future. We were lucky in the pandemic because shortly before covid hit in 2020 we completed the technology process that allows phone banks to connect to our network remotely. Thanks to this, we were able to let ninety percent of call center employees work and process customers from home during the pandemic. We still partially work with this system today because, for example, it allows mothers with small children to be employed.
Did covid bring something positive in addition to the closure and the pandemic?
they provide that call centers make sense in the future as well. While before the pandemic we were convinced that the importance of the call center would gradually decrease, during covid it has increased dramatically. People tried to protect themselves, stayed at home and tried to handle things as much as possible via the Internet or the phone. During the pandemic, the number of phone calls increased significantly and has practically not decreased since then. In short, people have learned to use the phone and call the center to handle a number of things.
That’s growth by call centers, but how many people still visit branches?
80,000 clients come to the branches every month, and practically the same number call the call center during this time. Also written communication, when we handle twenty thousand e-mails a month. you need to automate and digitize responses.
For this, you are now using a voicebot, a virtual voice assistant that is available 24/7. How much of a technological benefit is it?
We launched it on the day that Santa Claus comes, i.e. December 5. And we are already seeing clear results in incoming calls. Voicebot is a virtual telephone banker that can handle up to a quarter of all inquiries that come to our call center in Ostrava.
So will artificial intelligence soon replace call center jobs?
I don’t think robots will replace human staff completely. When we won the Bank of the Year award last year, robots greeted our employee in the lobby of the bank the next morning, offered refreshments and thanked people for their work. Nevertheless, I hope that these machines will not replace us. There will still be a lot of room for the banker and his skills. The robot will never answer more difficult questions, it will only answer the simple ones.
So what can a robot do?
So far, Voicebot is set up to answer four basic client questions. What to do if I forget the password to the internet bank, can it unblock the internet bank or change the withdrawal limits. The last situation that the robot can handle at the moment is to solve a forgotten ID, which we will then send to you. The magic of a voicebot – when you think of it in contrast to traditional voice services – is that it breaks down the push-button inquiry system: it’s tedious and annoying. The client gets upset, so he looks for the fastest way to reach the operator. Voicebot has no access tree. It asks what you want, you answer and I immediately solve the request for the mentioned four most frequent questions. You speak in a pleasant voice that responds immediately after verification of identification. More and more parameters will be added. In addition, Voicebot can handle multiple clients in parallel, so people don’t have to wait because it’s never busy.
In the year you were successful in the Bank of the Year competition, which of the several awards do you value the most?
The fact that we won second place in the main Bank of the Year competition. We have never been so high before and the battle with the victorious Komerční banka was very balanced. The title in the main prize was not far away.
Ales Sloupenský (50)
He studied marketing and management at the Faculty of Economics of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, then received his MBA at Nottingham Trent University in Great Britain. He has focused his entire professional career on the retail sector. He worked at Česká spořitelna, where he devoted himself to the management and development of retail distribution for 12 years, and also held managerial positions at Komerční banka and Bank Austria Creditanstalt. He also gained foreign experience at BCR Bank in Romania, where he helped prepare a successful retail development strategy. Since April 2014, he has been working as the director of the retail banking division at Moneta Money Bank.
How the mortgage market developed last year