Standard Bank customers can now conduct banking transactions with only a telephone and their voice.
Its new speech banking facility operates without the interaction of a keypad, which also allows disabled, elderly and visually impaired customers to transact.
"This is the first speech-enabled banking facility in the country," says Ross Moody, manager of interactive voice response and call automation at Standard Bank. "And it is 100% secure."
The technology allows customer to transfer funds, make payments, do prepaid airtime recharges and access statement enquiries by responding to automatic voice prompts, according to a Standard Bank statement. Some of these functionalities are limited compared to Internet banking to ensure a safer banking environment, it says.
"Call centre research has found that this technology promotes an increase in self-service. It is more user-friendly, and allows for more options without the limitation of keys," explains Moody.
Speech banking went through a soft launch in June and has since received positive feedback, says Moody.
"It opens up new self-service opportunities, expands our ability to service customers after-hours, improves automation rates and shortens call duration times."
Customers can set up and use this form of telephone banking without charge. Moody says Standard Bank is looking at speech verification and "natural language" processing as future added benefits to its telephone banking capabilities.
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