: Next time when you enter City Union Bank’s (CUB) T. Nagar branch, chances are that you will be greeted by Lakshmi, the robot with artificial intelligence.
Sounds surprising? Well, the private sector bank will instal the two-foot robot in the coming days on a pilot basis at the T. Nagar branch. It will be placed in the lobby to greet customers and explain various products apart from technology services.
The robot, imported from France, has been customised in Coimbatore to provide basic information about the bank’s history, deposit and lending rates, special schemes for students and number of branches among other things. Initially, Lakshmi will provide answers in English, followed by regional languages in the coming months.
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“A recent study said staffers spent most of the time answering some 120 basic questions. About 95 per cent of the questions asked by customers were repetitive. We have fed the inputs and Lakshmi will be able to answer them,” said N. Kamakodi, City Union Bank Managing Director and CEO.
Through this initiative, City Union Bank will have the distinction of being the first private sector bank in the country to deploy a robot with artificial intelligence to answer generic banking-related questions of customers.
Later, it will be integrated with the Core Banking System to enable it to do multi-tasking such as providing account details and ordering cheque books.
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“For the next two to three months, we will see the response from the public. By March 2017, we are planning to have 25 to 30 robots installed in different branches,” he said.
Card misuse
To prevent misuse of ATM cards, CUB has introduced a new feature in its mobile banking app through which customers can block and unblock their ATMs/point of sale/e-commerce transactions at any point of time.