Gone are the days when there used to be long queues in banks due to manual processing. Today everything has become digitized to ease the process and create a rich customer experience. The entire process of banking has transformed into a method of customer engagement where customer touch-points are increasing in number along with a series of transformed customer interaction channels.

Areas of noticeable transformation

Although slow, yet the financial sector has embraced IoT to digitize the concept of retail banking. Thus, the major part of banking activities is driven by technology now. Due to the implementation of IoT – the process of KYC, collateral management, lending, payments, trade finance, personal financial management, and insurance has become seamless. This process helped IoT collect both customer and financial data through secured technology.

Revolutionizing the payment process

IoT plays a vital role in tracking mortgage assets and collaterals. Even the agricultural lending process can be automated with the help of IoT. In fact, with the advent of IoT, the payment processes were automated. Payments using smart wearable devices or through scanning QR code using digital wallets or UPIs have created a revolutionary change in the financial segment. Also, Wi-Fi-enabled cards and RFID-based payment processing have gained considerable popularity due to its secured and fast-paced processing.

Growing dependence on chatbots for banking

To ensure rich customer experience, organizations are trying to ensure proper customer engagement and for that, a perfect blend of contextual and conversational banking is needed. Again, the banking activities when implemented through IoT, it drastically reduced the operational cost but improved the overall customer experience through more contextual and conversational banking.

Starting from customer onboarding to the KYC process banking has gained considerable pace due to digitization. Banking no longer represents only manual banking, appropriate contextual services can now be accessed from anywhere. Biometric digital channels and technologies such as wet ink enable banking remotely adding convenience to the users. Hence, it comes into picture IoT-enabled assisted devices that can help customers virtually converse with the bank. For example, Cleo is a chatbot platform that successfully connects users with their banks. Bill payment and other transactions have become seamless with the help of chatbots. This will help customers brief their exact requirement and accordingly the bank can customize a service that will cater to the demand of the specific customer. The IoT-led digital transformation will attract new customers eventually increasing the market share of the bank.

Now, along with the enhanced pace of payment, responsive mobile banking service and improved customer experience IoT also offers the financial sector to collect information about their customers to personalize the experience and improve efficiency.

IoT enabled wearable devices

Low-cost wearable devices have added to the success of the IoT implementation. Some of the popular wearables that deserve special mention are FitPay, Apple Watch, bPay, etc. Even IoT was implemented in a bar in London which helped users to avoid long queues during peak hours. Again, IoT in connected vehicles added the liberty for an integrated deposit box with security features along with an ATM. Also, it must be mentioned how the bank’s secure records of authentic transactions with the assistance of IoT. With the help of blockchain technology, global trade transaction has become both secure and fast. Hence, IoT plays a crucial role in making banks smarter with even facial recognition technology for authentication purposes.

Conclusion

Hence, the potential of IoT combined with other innovative technologies is immense. The banking sector empowered with IoT can ease the banking process for its customers and create a firm ground for predictive analyses using the data accumulated.

- Kathakali Basu
Content Writer
Infoholic Research