City Union Bank will soon launch 2-in-1 debit & credit card:
City Union Bank, with 727 branches across 16 states and 3 union territories, has contemporary technology and infrastructure including ATMs, net banking, mobile banking, e-wallet, social media banking for personal as well as business banking customers. Sankaran G., General Manager, Computer Systems Department, provides insightful updates in terms of digital initiatives, which are live and in the pipeline.
Voice Biometric, Mobile App
City Union Bank (CUB), in its journey of technology innovation, took part in the 5G innovation initiated by the Government of India in association with Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT). As part of this innovation, the bank has launched its voice biometric as second factor authentication for its mobile banking customers. CUB is the first bank to enable this innovative feature. This offering will be an additional method of authentication by the customers and all the existing second factor authentication will continue to exist. As part of registration process, customer’s voice will be recorded for a particular duration and it will be registered. The criteria for validation of the speech / voice are speed of the speech, pronunciation, accent of the voice, etc. The solution is completely tested for its security and it is designed, based on standards prescribed by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sankaran updates: “Voice biometric is currently under beta release for select customers, employees and it will be rolled out in ‘CUB All in One Mobile App’ shortly for use by all of its customers. The voice will be validated based on the vectors and derivatives extracted from the speech data of the customer which will form a set of 36 dimensional factors.”
Lending Platform, AA, DBU
Recently the bank went live with direct and indirect payments, which was a long pending expectation of CUB customers. With this facility CUB customers will be able to make their tax payments directly from their account with CUB in the tax portal and generate the acknowledgement. CUB got approval for the Account Aggregator framework. This will improve the exchange of information across the eco system. As part of 75 years of independence, the bank got opportunity to open its Digital Banking Unit at Khammam, Andhra Pradesh. This was inaugurated by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Sankaran reveals: “CUB is in the process of implementing a complete new digital lending platform for its retail, corporate, MSME and agri portfolios. This will be an end-to-end digital journey right from origination to execution of documents, providing seamless digital experience for the customers. Currently AA framework is in closed user group, and this will soon be launched for consumption by all.”
Single Card, Multilingual Bot
The bank is in the process of launching of combined plastic card (debit & credit). The initial groundwork has been completed. Sankaran indicates: “We will be able to issue one single card, which can be used as both debit and credit card. This will enhance usage experience of customers.”
On the automation front, CUB has implemented multi-lingual conversational Chatbot ‘Ask Lakshmi’ which can converse in 4 languages. Customer is provided with experience of conversing with the bot for doing banking enquiries and transactions. Actions like changing or querying records are almost instantaneous for bots. On authenticating through mobile banking application, the bot is configured to respond to financial queries as well. Sankaran adds: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used for understanding voice instructions / enquiries by the customers and corresponding transactions are given effect. Almost 65-70% of our customer care queries are responded through conversational chatbot.”
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