The rapid growth and adoption of fintech in Southeast Asia has been one of the biggest success stories for the industry, a prime example of the value that fintech can bring to the lives of everyday people.

Whether its mobile-based payments services for everyday purchases or microloans for small businesses, fintech has provided millions of Southeast Asians with access to capital and financial services, where traditional financial institutions might have otherwise shunned them.

In many ways, the region was ripe for a disruption of its traditional financial institutions. Despite being one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing regions, cash was the primary means of transaction prior to the fintech boom, with basic financial products and services out of reach for millions of people, particularly in non-urban areas. 

While the growth thus far has been impressive, the industry has a long way to go before it reaches mass adoption. Even today, roughly six in 10 of the adult population remains unbanked, with limited access to financial services. In addition, millions of Southeast Asia’s small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) face large funding gaps.

In addition, the road ahead might not be so straightforward. Various factors threaten to curtail the growth of fintech, in particular the risk of fraud, with 1 in 4 Asia Pacific consumers having fallen prey to such crimes.

At the same time, while tighter regulations have been implemented by regulators to ensure the safety and security of consumers, these present an additional layer of friction for the onboarding process, which might hinder user acquisition for fintech businesses.

Know Your Customer (KYC) Processes can be hassle-free

In light of stricter regulations enforced on financial services, the KYC process has become a crucial part of customer onboarding for all fintech platforms, given the highly sensitive data that they have to handle.

However, this process is often tedious – customers have to go through several steps of documentation and verification before being allowed to use a service. In the process, brands could lose the attention of passive customers altogether.

With AI Rudder’s Voice AI technology, customers can enjoy both convenience and security when accessing these financial services, without the added friction. As a case in point, a major digital assets trading platform providers successfully reached 78% of their dormant customer base by utilising AI Rudder’s Voice AI for the KYC process, with more than 15% of customers who had yet to complete the KYC process going on to become new customers.

With KYC, not only do customers benefit from the seamless verification process, businesses are also able to leverage on the automated KYC reminders to free up time to complete other tasks.

Finding the balance between convenience and safety

When implementing voice AI technology into your business process as a financial service platform, it is important to understand the strict regulations surrounding this sector. Our voice AI assistants are trained and equipped to collect the information of customers efficiently and safely, without putting their personal data at risk. 

In addition to KYC verifications, here are three ways voice AI technology can achieve the sweet spot between ensuring the safety of customer data and convenience:

1. Business continuity

AI Rudder’s voice AI-powered automation is able to automatically retrieve customer information, with end-to-end encryption and user authentication. With this feature, customers have the assurance that these voice AI assistants are reliable, and that their information is stored safely and securely. This provides customers with a comparable alternative to traditional means of communication with a human agent.

2. Fraud detection

With automated voice assistants, fraud detection becomes an easier process as human agents no longer need to manually verify client information. By ensuring diligence and efficiency when identifying fraudulent calls, companies can keep their customers safe without spending too much time or resources.

3. Safety and compliance

The customer’s safety is of utmost importance, especially in financial services, where important customer data is being collected through the line. Voice AI can help firms maintain regulatory compliance and identify gaps and potential issues to improve customer service.

When customers feel warm and comfortable talking to voice AI assistants, they are more likely to cooperate and share their information. With these three elements in voice AI, coupled with the human-like nature of AI Rudder’s voice AI assistants, customers can enjoy a close-to-reality conversation that also guarantees their security.