NatWest Jalin Historic Collaboration With OpenAI For Digital Banking

NatWest, officially formed a partnership with OpenAI (photo: x @amandajplatell)

JAKARTA Bank from England, NatWest, officially formed a partnership with OpenAI in an effort to improve digital assistant services and customer support based on artificial intelligence (AI). This is the first collaboration between the UK-based bank and the leading AI company.

NatWest places AI as the main strategy to improve customer experience, and reduce operating costs. In addition, it also reduces losses due to increasingly widespread financial fraud.

Through this agreement, NatWest will gain full access to all OpenAI products as well as an early opportunity to view and use the latest technology from the AI company. In addition, the bank will also obtain special consultations and direct input from OpenAI executives.

One of the more than 275 AI projects being developed by NatWest is the improvement of their customer chatbot technology, Cora, as well as virtual assistants to internal staff, AskArchie.

Currently, most NatWest customers still prefer to report alleged fraud by telephone. However, the bank hopes that the presence of AI-generative technology from OpenAI can encourage more customers to report cases of digital fraud, thereby accelerating responses in securing vulnerable accounts.

According to UK Finance data, in the first half of 2024, the total loss due to payment fraud in the UK reached more than 570 million pounds (around Rp. 12.1 trillion). By accelerating the reporting process through Cora, NatWest hopes to secure accounts that are affected more quickly while at the same time releasing customer service agents to deal with other needs.

Not only that, NatWest believes that AI-based digital assistants can also help customers better understand their financial condition, so they can plan their finances more effectively.

"AI has played an important role in our digital transformation, helping colleagues across banks to serve customers more personally and efficiently," said Scott Marcar, Chief Information Officer of NatWest Group.

The generative AI feature presented in Cora is claimed to have increased customer satisfaction by up to 150% while reducing human agent involvement in handling customer requests.

Angela Herding, CEO of Retail Banking NatWest, added that around 80% of NatWest retail customers are now transacting digitally completely. Therefore, innovation in digital experience is a top priority for the bank.

OpenAI, founded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in 2015, initially aimed at developing AI for humanitarian purposes rather than just corporate gains. However, the company is now trying to switch to profit-oriented business models to obtain the funding needed to develop the best AI model.