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Transforming digital financial services – and making lives easier 

Every day, people discover the efficiencies and value of digital financial services. Small, incidental transactions—like depositing a refund check—can be completed in a matter of minutes, and large, life-changing financial processes—like getting a mortgage—proceed more quickly and efficiently as well. Transactions and processes can be completed from anywhere, at any time, which reduces in-person banking obligations, supports social distancing efforts, and improves people’s lives.  

According to Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and the World Economic Forum, adoption of AI solutions in banking has become more mainstream: a majority of financial services companies say they have implemented AI technology in business domains like risk management and revenue generation. As AI gains popularity in banking, financial institutions are building on their existing solutions to solve increasingly complex challenges. 

Andrew Moor, Equitable Bank’s President and Chief Executive Officer, is committed to Equitable’s mission to provide better banking services remotely through digital channels. “Equitable Bank is Canada’s Challenger BankTM, a digitally enabled bank,” Moor says. “We don’t have branches on the street, but we have a strong digital presence. Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services enables us to scale and provide added value to support Canadians. We have about 325,000 customers today, and we continue to grow fairly quickly.” 

  • 80% of banks are highly aware of the potential benefits presented by AI and machine learning.1 
  • 75% of respondents at banks with over $100 billion in assets say they’re currently implementing AI strategies, compared with 46% at banks with less than $100 billion in assets.1 
  • 89% of US respondents say they use mobile banking channels, and 70% of say mobile banking has become the primary way they access their accounts.2 
  • Certain AI use cases have already showed impressive results—chatbots will save banks up to $7.3 billion worldwide by 2023.3 

Predictions for the future of digital financial services include AI-powered innovations in faster payments, digital identity security, open banking, and mobile banking. As customer demand for a wide and secure array of digital financial services grows, financial service leaders are rising to meet the challenges, freeing people from the constraints of brick-and-mortar locations and making lives better.  

Equitable Bank relies on having great partners. “We know what we’re good at in facing our customers,” says Moor. “But having Microsoft behind us—supporting our infrastructure, building to scale with cloud—means we don’t need to be worrying about improvements in technology. We can just focus on making our customers’ experience better.”  

Get into all the transformative things Microsoft and partners are accomplishing with AI with Azure for financial services.

Learn more about empowering intelligent financial service in Microsoft’s e-Book: Reimagining Modern Financial Services

SOURCES: 

  1. Eleni Digalaki, “The impact of artificial intelligence in the banking sector & how AI is being used in 2022,” Business Insider, February 2, 2022. 
  2. Alicia Phaneuf, “The disruptive trends & companies transforming digital banking services in 2022,” Insider Intelligence, January 4, 2022. 
  3. Sam Smith, “Bank cost savings via chatbots to reach $7.3 billion by 2023,” Juniper Research, February 20, 2019.