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August 15th, 2024

7 Financial Services Chatbots to Try: Features, Pricing, and More

  • portrait of Kara Hartnett

    Kara Hartnett

Financial services organizations face specific challenges, such as meeting customer expectations for fast, accurate, and secure support around the clock. At the same time, institutions must manage strict compliance requirements and find ways to improve operational efficiency. Fintech like AI-powered chatbots are now essential to handle these demands.

This guide explores seven leading virtual assistant platforms for financial services, providing insights into their features, pricing, and use cases. With the right solution, financial institutions can improve customer service, automate repetitive tasks, and maintain high compliance standards.

What Is a Finance Chatbot?

A finance chatbot is an artificial intelligence-based digital assistant built specifically for the financial services industry. Unlike general-purpose chatbots, these tools address the complex needs of banks, credit unions, investment firms, and other financial organizations.

Finance chatbots perform tasks such as answering customer inquiries, processing transactions, and identifying potential fraud. They can also offer personalized financial advice, improving the customer experience by providing support that feels relevant.

Finance chatbots differ from those used in less strictly regulated industries. These assistants handle sensitive customer data and must meet compliance standards like GDPR, CCPA, and PSD2. This level of scrutiny ensures that financial institutions maintain trust while protecting customer information.

Benefits of Chatbots in Financial Services

Digital assistants provide value beyond simple automation. They help financial institutions improve customer interactions, enhance internal efficiency, and maintain regulatory compliance.

1. Improving Customer Engagement and Support

Banking chatbots enable financial institutions to provide 24/7 assistance, ensuring customers receive support whenever needed. These assistants manage large volumes of inquiries simultaneously, reducing customer wait times and freeing up human agents for more complex tasks.

Personalization is another strength. By analyzing customer data, chatbots can deliver responses specific to individual needs. For example, a chatbot might recognize that a user prefers investment-related updates and prioritize relevant information during interactions.

Advancements in natural language processing (NLP) and dialogue understanding (DU) capabilities allow chatbots to interpret complex queries accurately. Customers asking multi-part questions or clarifying earlier points benefit from context-aware responses, contributing to a smoother support experience.

2. Enhancing Operational Efficiency and Reducing Costs

Chatbots excel at automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks. They can handle activities such as:

  • Answering frequently asked questions.
  • Processing basic transactions.
  • Assisting with new banking customer onboarding.

By automating these tasks, financial institutions reduce the workload for human agents. This shift lets employees focus on resolving nuanced customer issues or managing high-priority accounts.

Cost reduction is another advantage. Deploying a chatbot can lower operational expenses by minimizing the need for large customer support teams. At the same time, institutions maintain high service quality by ensuring quick and consistent responses to common queries.

3. Supporting Compliance and Data Security

Compliance is a significant concern in financial services; chatbots help institutions address it effectively. AI assistants use end-to-end encryption, data masking, and other technologies to protect customer information during every interaction.

See this webinar replay or read this whitepaper to learn how Rasa navigates compliance in regulated industries.

Chatbots also assist with compliance tasks such as:

  • Verifying customer identities through KYC protocols.
  • Detecting unusual transaction patterns that may indicate fraud.
  • Maintaining audit trails for regulatory reporting.

Financial institutions minimize risks by embedding compliance capabilities into customer interactions while streamlining regulatory processes.

Effective Use Cases for Financial Services Chatbots

Chatbots bring practical value to financial institutions in many ways. Here are three specific areas where they improve the banking experience:

1. Automating Customer Inquiries

Customers frequently ask about account balances, transaction histories, and loan details. Chatbots manage these inquiries quickly and accurately, reducing response times and improving customer satisfaction.

For example, a chatbot integrated into a banking app can provide balance updates with a single request, eliminating the need for customers to navigate menus or wait on hold for support.

2. Assisting with Fraud Detection

Fraud detection requires constant monitoring, and chatbots can play a vital role. AI-powered assistants analyze transaction data in real-time, flagging unusual patterns that might indicate fraud.

When potential fraud is detected, chatbots send customers notifications immediately. They also guide users through steps to secure their accounts, reducing the likelihood of financial losses and enhancing the user experience.

3. Streamlining Customer Onboarding

Chatbots simplify onboarding by guiding customers through required steps, such as uploading documents for KYC verification. They also answer questions in real-time, helping customers complete the process with minimal friction.

This approach saves time and ensures compliance with regulatory standards by collecting and verifying information accurately.

Real-World Example: Enhancing Customer Service with AI

A leading financial services company partnered with Rasa to transform its digital assistant into a proactive customer service tool. The assistant supports over 1.5 million users, handling more than 10 million interactions and resolving 58% of inquiries autonomously with 90% accuracy.

By leveraging Rasa’s flexible platform, the assistant delivers proactive insights, such as alerting users about incorrect PIN entries or suggesting cost-saving options based on spending patterns. It also integrates with third-party services, allowing customers to complete transactions like purchasing tickets directly within the assistant.

These improvements showcase conversational AI’s potential to enhance customer engagement, streamline operations, and maintain compliance.

Want to learn more? Read the full case study.

7 Chatbots to Implement for Financial Services

Each chatbot platform offers unique strengths for financial institutions, addressing key challenges such as compliance, customer engagement, and operational efficiency. Below is an in-depth look at seven chatbot solutions and how they can support financial services.

Choosing the right one depends on your institution’s goals, whether simplifying routine customer inquiries, enhancing compliance processes, or delivering personalized financial insights.

1. Rasa

Key features:
Rasa provides a flexible, secure, and highly customizable platform built specifically to meet the needs of industries like financial services. The platform supports conversation repair, ensuring seamless interactions even when users change topics or digress.

Our LLM-agnostic architecture allows institutions to choose and switch between large language models (LLMs) without vendor lock-in. Additionally, we support on-premise deployments, a crucial feature for institutions that must maintain strict control over sensitive customer data.

Benefits:

  • Full control over data privacy and security, ensuring compliance with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and PSD2.
  • Omnichannel support allows institutions to deploy AI assistants across web, mobile, and messaging platforms, ensuring consistent customer experiences.
  • Rasa Studio, our no-code UI, simplifies creating and deploying AI assistants, making it easier for internal teams to customize workflows and update processes.
  • The CALM (Conversational AI with Language Models) framework ensures that responses remain accurate, even in complex interactions, reducing the risk of generative AI producing incorrect content.

Pricing:
Subscription-based, with custom pricing options that meet enterprise needs.

2. TARS

Key features:
TARS focuses on creating conversational landing pages, enabling financial institutions to automate repetitive customer queries and drive lead generation. Its streamlined interface allows users to set up simple workflows and manage customer conversations efficiently.

Benefits:

  • Great for improving lead conversion rates by engaging visitors with focused, conversational flows.
  • Simplifies repetitive tasks such as answering basic FAQs or collecting customer details.
  • Offers a user-friendly interface that requires minimal technical expertise to deploy.

Drawbacks:
TARS lacks advanced AI capabilities, making it less suitable for complex financial interactions, such as fraud detection or compliance monitoring.

Pricing:
Usage-based pricing, with features scaled according to the needs of the business.

3. Haptik

Key features:
Haptik offers pre-trained intent libraries specifically designed for financial services, allowing quick deployment. Its strong focus on omnichannel support ensures seamless customer experiences across platforms such as mobile apps, websites, and social media.

Benefits:

  • Reduces deployment time with pre-trained intents that cover common financial use cases.
  • Supports customization for mid-level complexity tasks, making it suitable for institutions with straightforward requirements.
  • Enables consistent customer interactions across various channels, improving engagement and accessibility.

Drawbacks:
While Haptik works well for mid-level use cases, it may not meet the depth of customization needed for highly regulated environments or complex financial workflows.

Pricing:
Flexible pricing options, depending on enterprise needs and scale.

4. Kore.ai

Key features:
Kore.ai delivers a comprehensive chatbot solution, offering pre-built virtual assistants alongside customizable options. It excels in workflow optimization, AI-driven automation, and omnichannel engagement, making it a solid choice for financial institutions with varied use cases.

Benefits:

  • Simplifies routine processes for financial products like loan applications, account updates, and transaction tracking.
  • Enhances customer experience through consistent engagement across multiple channels, including mobile apps and voice platforms.
  • Offers robust tools for automating workflows and integrating with existing systems.

Drawbacks:
Kore.ai’s flexibility may not match platforms like Rasa when addressing deeply customized or highly regulated financial use cases.

Pricing:
Tiered pricing is designed to fit enterprise needs and the scope of deployment.

5. Ultimate.ai

Key features:
Ultimate.ai specializes in automating customer service interactions and integrating seamlessly with CRM systems. Its focus on real-time personalization ensures that customer queries are handled quickly and accurately.

Benefits:

  • Improves agent productivity by taking over routine customer inquiries, such as balance checks or account updates.
  • Personalizes responses based on customer data, enhancing the quality of interactions.
  • Supports integration with popular CRM platforms, streamlining operations.

Drawbacks:
Ultimate.ai is best suited for customer service automation and may not fully address complex financial tasks like regulatory compliance or fraud prevention.

Pricing:
Custom pricing options are available based on enterprise requirements.

6. Kasisto

Key features:
Kasisto is designed specifically for digital banking, focusing on transactional understanding and delivering personalized financial advice. It offers strong NLP capabilities and supports advanced use cases like cross-selling, customer engagement in digital banking, and acting as a financial advisor.

Benefits:

  • Provides highly specialized tools for financial institutions, including real-time transaction analysis and tailored financial advice.
  • Enhances customer interactions by recognizing opportunities for cross-selling and upselling relevant services.
  • Supports complex financial workflows, making it a strong option for banks and credit unions.

Drawbacks:
Kasisto’s advanced features are more expensive, which may make it less accessible to smaller institutions with limited budgets.

Pricing:
Premium pricing model, reflective of its specialized capabilities.

7. AlphaChat

Key features:
AlphaChat combines multilingual support to ensure secure and compliant customer interactions. Its strong NLP capabilities enable it to automate customer-facing tasks and internal workflows.

Benefits:

  • Ideal for institutions serving diverse customer bases, thanks to its multilingual capabilities.
  • Ensures compliance with financial sector regulations, providing secure data handling and audit trails.
  • Automates processes like employee onboarding and customer verification, reducing manual effort.

Drawbacks:
AlphaChat may not offer the same level of deep customization provided by platforms like Rasa, which could limit its flexibility for certain institutions.

Pricing:
Scalable pricing options to meet the needs of businesses of varying sizes.

Build Better Customer Relationships with Rasa

Chatbots in financial services require more than basic functionality. Institutions must prioritize security, compliance, and flexibility to meet the high standards of their industry.

Rasa offers a customizable platform that gives organizations complete control over their data and processes. With features like conversation repair, multi-channel integration, and support for on-premise deployment, the Rasa Platform provides everything financial institutions need to create effective and secure AI assistants.

Take the next step. Connect with Rasa today to learn how to improve your financial services institution with AI.