NatWest tests AI tool that watches your spending
NatWest is testing an AI tool that lets customers talk through their spending with their bank by voice or text.
The bank confirmed the trial of its Spending Insights tool in its third-quarter results on Friday (30 October), saying it would make it easier for customers to understand and manage their spending.
NatWest first announced the tool on 25 September, with Royal Bank of Scotland customers the first to try it.
Customers can ask questions about their spending, budgeting and financial habits in a natural two-way conversation, and the tool can handle follow-up questions, changes of topic and interruptions.
It turns a customer’s transaction data into personalised insights, charts and graphs as the conversation goes on.
NatWest built the tool on its own small language models, developed in-house by its Chief AI Research Office rather than bought from a third-party provider.
The bank said it was the first in the industry to test a fully generative, real-time voice-to-voice conversational AI for personal finance.
NatWest worked with Nvidia to improve the tool’s speech recognition, so it can understand the wider range of regional accents and everyday money language used across the UK.
“We are using AI to strengthen our relationships and better support customer needs,” said Maja Pantic, Chief AI Research Officer at NatWest Group.
The bank also revealed that its new AI fraud-triage agent has now handled 52,000 conversations with credit card customers.
The agent sits inside Cora, NatWest’s existing digital assistant, and lets customers worried about a suspicious card transaction explain what happened in their own words.
NatWest said the agent resolves fraud queries more quickly and frees up staff to deal with more complex cases.
Staff use of AI is also climbing, with AI use among NatWest’s private banking and wealth management colleagues up 66% over the quarter.
NatWest’s overall headcount fell by around 1,000 full-time roles during the same three months, which the bank put down to ongoing work to simplify the business.
