10 ways how AI is impacting mobile banking

We are living in a technologically advanced world where technology and mankind co-habit. While the use of technology has become a normalized practice, the power of innovation doesn’t cease to amaze. Every day comes with a new modification and development that changes the things for good. One such technology that has impacted the day-to-life of individuals and organizations is Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

The concept of AI in app development is not new; neither is its integration with various organizations. It has immense benefits to offer, and one sector that has been continuously unleashing the power of AI is the Banking Sector.

With the integration of AI & banking, the business processes speedup; consume less time and efforts. Besides saving resources, Artificial Intelligence has also made banking over mobile and internet platforms, safer, securer, and more reliable.

Unlike other technologies, AI was welcomed by consumers with open arms. Today, a majority of users rely on a virtual personal assistant like Alexa, OK Google, and Siri, to facilitate their day to day tasks. The extent of personalization also doesn’t seem to know any bounds. The use of AI in different industries, including Banking is phenomenal and at times, unbelievable; how technology can be this precise and accurate. 

Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Banking:

The integration of Artificial Intelligence and banking has been the talk of the town for quite some time now. Several advanced banks have already implemented the technology to make their processes more reliable. However, there are several banks in the market who are still in a dilemma whether or not the technology is meant for their businesses processes. 

 Narrative Science and the National Business Research Institute collectively conducted a survey, in which they concluded that 32% of financial institutions are already utilizing the features of AI technology. Most commonly, AI is being utilized in predictive analytics, recommendation engines, and voice recognition. 

Many new features are launched every day, which are in itself creating a benchmark. The iOS mobile app of the Royal Bank of Canada is one fine example of how the bank has added Siri to its mobile banking. As the market showcase a cut-throat competition, this launch compels others to find out the best use of AI in their technologies and come up with more customer-experience enhancing mobile apps that use Artificial Intelligence.

Another important aspect that banking and financial institutions should look for is the need for personalization. The modern-day consumer relies on technology so much that they need everything altered to suit their personal need. The concept is no different for mobile apps. When AI is integrated with mobile apps, banks can cater to this unique requirement, allowing consumers to simplify their daily banking requirements. However, to ensure that the concept of AI in mobile banking is fruitful, banks should continuously lookout for more simplified and user-friendly AI-powered mobile apps.

How is AI impacting the mobile banking industry?

Mobile banking offers easy access and saves time, and this is why more and more customers are frequently downloading the mobile apps of their respective bank. The banks take this as a perfect opportunity to enhance the user experience and offer them a platform where they can conduct financial transactions with a sense of ease, safety, security, and reliability.

AI development and integration with mobile banking has great advantages, including:

Chatbots:

Gone are the days when banks dedicated their employees with one-on-one human interactions, solving customer queries and requests. Thanks to the Chatbots, banks are now offering quick and easy solutions to their customers, and saving money altogether. Chatbots are very easy to use and allow quick access and solutions to the customer’s query. 

The modern-day mobile app development is so advanced that a customer with little or no knowledge about using technology and technical terms can quickly capitalize its features. When compared to the traditional ways of banking, AI mobile banking offers more personalized and swift banking experiences.

Enhanced financial planning:

Financial planning is crucial for any individual or business, and most of us rely on banks for helping us out in planning finances and money plans. Several factors affect the financial plans of any entity, and after complex calculations are made, the bank presents a tailor-made solution to a customer. 

To avoid human error and the difficulty of dealing with these complex calculations, AI is being used more frequently. A machine or mobile apps that use artificial intelligence can offer better, more accurate, and advanced planning solutions.

Fraud detection:

Artificial Intelligence is a machine-learning process, and this allows it to read patterns and behavior in great depths. This ability is better utilized in mobile banking for detecting frauds. Mobile AI offers quick and efficient detection of fraudulent activities and behaviour in real-time. Artificial Intelligence also makes banking more secure.

Personalization:

Artificial Intelligence has the ability to offer an immense amount of data related to the customers to banking institutions. This data can be further utilized in understanding customer behavior and create tailor-made services and solutions.

Once the preferences of a particular individual are sorted out, a bank can offer customized plans, more personalized assistance, and quick solution to their query or demand.

With every interaction, Artificial Intelligence learns more and more about and customer and its preferences and combine the data for more meaningful developments, boosting the extent of personalization.

Quick and efficiency banking transactions:

Gone are the days when carrying out a banking transaction was an effortful task. Today, AI development has made banking transactions fast and efficient. A user can now easily replicate similar transactions n number of times, while using limited resources and efforts. Artificial Intelligence-powered mobile banking applications understand the customer’s request. They channel them to the desired route without wasting any time and thus fasten the entire process.

Efficient Financial advisory:

Customers rely on banks when it comes to financial advisory. As AI depends more on data analysis and prediction, mobile apps that use artificial intelligence offers more accurate and productive solutions. From financial planning to an investment portfolio and insurance, AI-powered mobile apps make choices more reliable. 

Ease of access and saving of resources:

Traditional banking involved significant human interactions. A sight of several human standing in front of a banking window is no surprise. However, with more and more banks adapting to AI in mobile banking, the queues are becoming shorter and shorter with each passing day.

One of the biggest reason of less human interaction in the banking sector is the degree of automation and ease of access provided by mobile apps. Consumers can now access a range of banking features without much efforts and also automate several transactions with a few clicks. 

Mobile AI also allows identifying any wrongful or unusual activity easier. You may have noticed messages from your bank identifying the use of your credit card or debit card and asking you to react in case it wasn't you who used them in the first place.

Enhanced assistance:

Winning a customer is one of the most challenging tasks for the banks in today’s market. The banks need to offer a great extent of support to a customer to win the customer’s trust to add them in their pool. AI enables banks with the power to help their customers. The level of assistance that a customer is offered while using a mobile app powered by AI is phenomenal. Right from help in installing the app to ease of using various features, AI mobile apps are very helpful. Moreover, the banks now send frequent reminders for available balance, upcoming installment of term or recurrent investments as well as for credit cards bill payments, which enhances the user-experiences.

Risk management:

AI has great benefits for banking institutions as it simplifies one of the enormous task faced by banks on day to day basis- Risk Management. When dealing with a new loan or credit requests, a bank has to identify various risks factors, eligibility, and credibility of a customer. While it was done manually, a few years back, today, mobile app data makes it very easy to calculate the risk in a few simple steps. 

Not only the banks can read the current financial behavior of a customer, but it can also predict the growth in their income and profitability from their investments.

One-stop solution:

Mobile banking with AI offers a one-point solution for most of the banking tasks. The customer does not have to visit the banks physically to perform various tasks, forward requests, or find an answer to their queries. 

AI in app development has made it easier for banks to offer productive customer services. Modern banking has become quick, efficient and safer, thanks to AI. It is the best time to invest in the technology and reap the many benefits it has in store to enhance banking experience and user-experiences.

What is Blockchain?

If you haven’t heard the word "Blockchain" yet, you sure must be living under the rock. As soon as the cryptocurrency became mainstream, Blockchain technology was the first one to gain recognition. It has been a revolutionary technology, which supports Bitcoin, for its error-free recordkeeping feature. While we all have heard this word once or more, many of us do not know what technology is all about. Many of us even think that it is a complex phenomenon that is hard to decode. However, all these notions are wrong as understanding this decentralizes, distributed, and public ledger technology is elementary. 

Here is an ultimate guide to Bitcoin technology that you need to read today, to understand what the buzz is all about:

What is Blockchain?

As the name suggests, a blockchain is nothing but a chain of blocks, however not literal by in the form of its functioning. It is basically an intricately woven set of data that is encrypted and stored in a database (block), and several such databases are interconnected (chain).

A typical block (set of a database) has three parts;

1. The block stores a variety of data which include the date, time, and dollar amount about any transaction that you make online using Bitcoin. 

2. The block also stores information about the parties involved in the transactions, including the buyer and the seller. However, blockchain technology operates on an anonymous basis and hence every entity on a blockchain is given a unique “digital signature,” to keep it personally unidentifiable. Take it like a username you have to generate while using any app or website.

3. Each block stores a unique set of information that makes it different from any other block in the chain. The code stored in the block, known as “hash,” makes identification of the block easier. Every transaction you make is stored in a separate block to make it unique. 

Each block is large and capable of storing as much as 1MB of data. This means that each block stores several transactions that may involve different transaction parties.

How does blockchain work?

Block records the data related to a transaction, and a series of blocks strung together is known as a blockchain. For any transaction to be recorded in a blockchain, it must fulfill the following sequence of events:

1- Transaction:

The primary requirement for the data recording and formation of blockchain is the occurrence of a transaction. 

2- Verification:

The second step is verification and every transaction added to the blockchain must be verified. Unlike other transactions of the physical world, in Blockchain, a transaction is verified by a series of computers. The network may comprise several computers spread in a vast geographical area, often across the globe. The role of these computers is to check the transaction details and give a confirmation that they are correct. 

3- Addition:

As soon as the transaction is verified, the data must be recorded in a block. The data include the transaction amount, as well as the details of the involved parties, i.e., seller and buyer. Hundreds and thousands of similar natured transaction are recorded in one block.

4- Every block is assigned a unique hash, a unique identification code. As soon as the hash is provided, the block can be added to the chain.

Pros and cons of Blockchain:

Just like any other technology, Blockchain has its own set of advantages and disadvantage. Let us have a closer look:

Pros of Blockchain:

• Blockchain is distributed:

Blockchain operates in a network of over thousands of computers. This makes it safe for any technical failure or malicious attacks. Each computer in the network, also known as a node, make their own copy of the data, which cannot be breached.

• Higher stability:

Once a block gets verified, it is impossible to reverse them. This is the reason that the data stored in a blockchain is 100% safe and cannot be breached.

• Decentralized system:

Because there is no one intermediary party involved, but several nodes, operating on the chain, Blockchain is a decentralized system. Mining, the process of several nodes, working vigorously on approving a transaction, makes it a trustless system.

Cons of Blockchain:

Yes, blockchain has certain downsides as well, which includes:

Data modification:

The blockchain technology does not have any scope for modification of the data. Once the data is recorded in a block, it cannot be modified. There are certain times when a modification is mandatory, and in such cases, one blockchain is abandoned, and another one is taken. The process is called Hard Fork.

Private Keys:

Every blockchain user gets a private key to own cryptocurrency on the blockchain. A unique key is associated with a blockchain address. This private key allows access to the funds and must be kept secret. If a user forgets the private key, the transaction is lost.

Blockchain is a revolutionary technology with exceptional uses. Hope this article helps you understand the basics of this technology to take advantages of its excellence.

Edge Computing

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjMS15V_7nQ 

The technological world is constantly evolving, and the change is for good. The latest development that has gained a lot of popularity is Edge Computing. This technology allows easy and efficient data processing near the source. The ideal process of data processing is that the data is collected from various IoT devices. It is then channeled through long routes to reach their final destination- distant data centers and clouds. However, with Edge computing, it is possible to process at a nearby location.

The most significant benefits of this technology are that now, data processing takes much lesser time. Any organizations that rely on processed data can make quick analysis in real-time. The primary organizations that enjoy the benefit include manufacturing, health care, telecommunications, and finance.

What is Edge Computing?

As per the definition, Edge Computing is a closely-knit network of a micro data center. These centers store or process the critical data produced from the Internet of Things devices at a local center. From here, all the data is further channeled to a central location; a data center or cloud storage depository. The process has a footprint of less than 100 square feet. 

The data from IoT devices travel a long path before it is stored and processed. With the advent of Edge Computing, the same data can be processed locally, which will reduce the backhaul traffic towards the central repository.

The typical process of edge computing involves data processing from IoT devices to a local machine that has computing, storage, and network connectivity. Edge processes all the data. However, a small part or complete data set is also forwarded to a central processing unit located at a co-location facility or IaaS Cloud.

What is the importance of Edge Computing?

There are many circumstances where the implementation of Edge Computing has proven beneficial. One such scenario is when there is a poor connection between IoT devices which makes it troublesome for IoT devices to stay connected to the central cloud.

IoT is also crucial in cases of latency-sensitive processing of information. The need to reduce latency is because there is no longer a traveling path for the data to travel before it finally reaches the data centers. This becomes really important benefits for industries that cannot tolerate any latency, even the one that measures in milliseconds.

When companies deploy edge computing, the local data center doesn’t necessarily have to send the data regularly. Instead, it can process the data locally and then send daily reports to the central data center. 

Use of Edge computing in 5G cellular network:

Edge computing is claimed to be an essential factor in building the framework of the 5G cellular networks. Once the 5G technology becomes a reality, the telecommunication companies will have to develop various micro data centers in their network to allow quick data processing. This is what edge computing is all about.

Is Edge Computing secure?

This is a controversial issue, as researchers have different say about it. Some state that Edge Computing is safer than any other computing. The reason is that the data is collected and processed at an edge location which means the travel distance and time is negligible. The lesser amount of data is processed in the central system; the lesser is the vulnerability.

However, some others state the complete reverse story. These theories explain that processing data in a close-by data center makes it more vulnerable. It is thus imperative that technology is given prime importance while building an edge computing network. Some of the crucial aspects to pay importance while building this network is:

• Data encryption
• Access control 
• Virtual private network tunneling

Understanding various terms and definitions related to Edge Computing:

There are specific terms associated with Edge Computing which are essential to understand. Some important terms are:

Edge Devices: All the devices in the network that produce & collect data are known as Edge Devices.

Edge: The edge differs from case to case. For example, in the case of a telecommunication network, a cellular phone or a mobile tower can be an Edge.

Edge gateway: The buffer between the local data center, where edge performs edge computing, and the central data center is known as Edge gateway. 

Fat client: A fat client is a software that supports data processing in the edge devices. The thick client is different than thin clients which do nothing but process the data.

Edge computing equipment:  Edge computing requires a range of equipment. These equipment include sensors, devices, and machines. These devices need internet access to work on the edge network. 

Mobile Edge computing: When used in the telecommunication system, the mobile edge computing is a network.

Edge computing is an emerging technology that is finding its usage in different industries. While many have understood how to capitalize its excellence, others are still working on it.