The financial sector has undergone a transformative shift fueled by two cutting-edge innovations – Financial Technology (Fintech) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). More and more Fintech businesses are adopting AI technology, and guess what? The global AI market in FinTech is projected to reach an impressive $61.3 billion by 2031.
Indeed, AI has established itself as a powerful player in Fintech, showcasing its capabilities in many tasks ranging from analyzing financial data to elevating customer service, providing insightful trading advice, and much more.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into AI in Fintech, exploring its benefits, challenges, major use cases, and real-life examples that highlight its strong impact on the financial industry.
Key Benefits of Applying AI in FinTech
AI-driven solutions offer many benefits to Fintech, making it an increasingly popular approach for financial institutions.
1. Boosted Security
AI brings extra protection to Fintech companies by using advanced methods to verify identity, such as voice, face, and fingerprint recognition. Hackers will find it much harder to break into the financial systems.
On top of that, as technology gets better each day, AI might even replace traditional usernames and passwords soon.
2. Automated Data Processing
Artificial intelligence enables companies to do their work more efficiently. It takes care of repetitive tasks, such as dealing with invoices and sorting out account information. It can also answer common questions, organize clients, and manage transactions and rules as easily as pie. This way, employees can focus on more interesting and challenging jobs.
What’s more, AI is excellent at finding areas where processes can be automated further, making things work even more smoothly and effectively. Companies can thus handle larger volumes of transactions and data effortlessly, save enormous time, and reduce the chances of making costly mistakes.
3. Enhanced Customer Experience
AI’s inherent ability to learn means it keeps getting better at understanding data over time and making customer experiences personalized. It can even analyze voice and speech to figure out a customer’s mood, guiding agents to provide the most appropriate solutions.
When applied in the Fintech sector, we can imagine practical scenarios like:
- AI-powered chatbots provide users with instant tailored investment suggestions.
- Call centers greatly reduce their workload since virtual assistants can quickly deal with basic customer inquiries and issues, such as what kinds of services are available, how to sign up, and how to close accounts or reset passwords.
- Advanced sentiment analysis evaluates customer satisfaction throughout the conversation and identifies areas for chatbots to be trained on constantly for better service.
4. Better Data Analytics and Predictions
By combining big data and AI power, finance experts can instantly get more valuable insights and accurate predictions about profitable strategies, investments, and market trends.
Well-trained AI algorithms can analyze huge amounts of customer data in a short time, which exceeds human analysts’ effectiveness. Organizations make use of them to acquire a profound understanding of customer preferences, product development, and distribution methods.
5. Cost Savings
Last but not least, AI-powered systems save you loads of money in resources, labor, and capital, mainly by automating previously manual tasks. Moreover, banks will save billions of dollars by employing AI for important tasks like credit underwriting and preventing money laundering.
These savings, in return, allow financial service providers to offer better deals and attract even more clients, resulting in increased revenue and profits.
Top 9 Use Cases of AI in FinTech
Artificial intelligence, with its remarkable ability to recognize patterns, analyze data swiftly, and adapt to ever-changing challenges, is revolutionizing the Fintech industry.
Read on to find out how exactly AI is used in Fintech.
1. Fraud Detection
Businesses are at risk of losing millions of dollars as illegal financial operations such as credit risk, loan application scams, fake insurance claims, and illicit wire transfers proliferate.
Artificial intelligence plays a crucial role in attack detection by scrutinizing extensive financial data and pinpointing unusual patterns or suspicious activities. Using machine learning algorithms and natural language processing, AI constantly learns from historical and current data to identify suspicious digital transactions in real-time. It’s also able to adapt to new fraud techniques, staying ahead of fraudsters effectively.
Not only does it reduce the workload for fraud analysts, allowing them to focus on more complex issues, but it also enables AI to tackle the “smaller” ones in the background.
2. Financial Reporting
Financial companies, including banks, normally must analyze vast amounts of data to turn them into comprehensive financial reports. These duties are super time-consuming, for sure. This is where AI steps in to speed up the process, empowering Fintech companies to generate reports quickly and accurately. By utilizing AI algorithms, companies can identify market trends, patterns, and insights that may have been overlooked manually.
A notable example of AI technologies in financial reporting is the use of natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to automate the extraction of relevant information from financial documents. Instead of manually sorting through documents like annual reports and regulatory filings, AI systems rapidly analyze text, identify key data points, and produce concise summaries. This assistant saves enormous time and greatly reduces the risk of human error.
3. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
By implementing RPA, Fintech companies can automate many different everyday tasks. Reviewing and verifying data, gathering and retrieving information from documents, performing data entry, producing reports based on given parameters, welcoming new customers, dealing with trade financing, handling loan applications, processing payrolls, closing accounts, and managing mortgages, to name a few.
RPA stands out as a budget-friendly way for businesses to manage office work more efficiently. Things are done accurately and on time, while human errors are minimized significantly.
4. Credit Scoring and Loan Prediction
Loan applications are a major part of any financial services company. Since AI algorithms can examine a person’s past credit history, income, and other finance-related details, they can precisely perform predictive analysis to see if that borrower might be able to pay back a loan. This helps lenders make smarter decisions about whether they should approve a loan.
Furthermore, AI can spot new customers who might have trouble paying back loans by looking at data points like demographics, income, credit scores, and even how they act on social media.
5. Personalized Financial Advice
Another interesting use case is AI-powered robo-advisors that use special machine learning algorithms to provide personalized financial advice to customers. Basically, robo-advisors will need to analyze a user’s finances, financial goals, and risk tolerance to ultimately suggest the best ways to invest, save, and manage money.
This means we will get advice that fits our own money situation and objectives, which is extremely convenient, practical, and helpful in many ways.
6. Chatbots for Customer Service
One major area we can’t afford to miss is customer service, where AI comes in chatbots and virtual assistants. These bots will quickly answer basic customer queries naturally and even assist with transactions, all while bringing them an effortlessly intuitive and smooth experience.
On top of that, when employed alongside AI, virtual assistants can guide customers through almost every nook and cranny of a bank’s services. It garners more useful user data and presents tailored CTAs to drive more targeted conversions. Together, the combination of these two saves you tremendous time, money, and resources on customer support and potentially boosts your business’s overall revenue.
7. Algorithmic Trading
AI is easing stock trading for everyone through a concept called algorithmic trading. Here, AI models analyze large volumes of data in real time, offering insights that statistical models aren’t able to obtain. This way, even average customers can try simple AI-powered mobile apps to trade stocks and shares and make more well-informed decisions based on AI-driven suggestions.
Moreover, AI in Fintech can quickly identify abnormalities, assess financial data to find trading trends and help you conduct market trades immediately if appropriate. In addition, thanks to the constant learning and improvement from historical data, AI financial algorithms let traders find good trading opportunities for maximized profit and the least potential losses.
8. Regulatory Compliance
RegTech, short for Regulatory Technology, presents a good solution to the challenges of keeping up with ever-evolving regulations and preparing lengthy documents, which usually take a lot of time and might lead to serious mistakes.
Using automated compliance software like RegTech seems just like a perfect approach. Examples include chatbots for rule advice, cloud platforms organizing regulatory and compliance data, and smart computer code for streamlined regulation-related data analysis.
Additionally, AI assists in monitoring transactions, detecting suspicious activities, and reporting them to regulatory agencies. Some machine learning models may even assist you with Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance.
9. Strengthening Digital Security
AI does a great job of making sure financial technologies are safe from all kinds of threats and vulnerabilities, strengthening essential measures for your business, from cybersecurity and blockchain security to PKI-based identity, DDOS protection, and DNS security.
This way, you can reinforce defenses, safeguarding the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive financial data. Especially in cryptocurrency ecosystems, AI aids in improving user authentication via two-factor authentication, Ethereum integration, face/voice/fingerprint recognition, etc.
Top 5 FinTech Companies with Integrated AI
So, that’s how AI is used in Fintech in theory. It’s time to learn how real-world Fintech companies successfully realize such use cases.
1. HighRadius
HighRadius, a SaaS FinTech startup, is making waves in the real world by using AI-powered autonomous systems to automate Accounts Receivable and Treasury processes. Essentially, they provide cloud-based Autonomous Software to the Office of the CFO, significantly changing how the order-to-cash treasury and record-to-report processes work.
This company goes beyond theory and delivers tangible results. HighRadius achieves measurable business outcomes in under six months, including reducing Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), optimizing working capital, lowering bad debt, cutting down month-close timelines, and enhancing overall productivity.
2. Hummingbird
Hummingbird stands out as a top-notch RegTech solution, boasting a specialized CRM platform tailored for compliance and risk management teams. The company takes pride in serving various financial institutions, including banks, AI-powered Fintech companies, lending institutions, and credit firms, with a powerful anti-money laundering (AML) system.
At the core of Hummingbird’s mission is the utilization of RegTech capabilities to substantially strengthen AML efforts. They focus on proactively identifying and preventing financial crimes on a broader and more effective scale.
3. Vectra
Vectra AI, a cybersecurity startup, is at the forefront of using AI to safeguard financial institutions against cyber threats. Their AI-driven cyber-threat detection platform, Cognito, plays a pivotal role in automating threat detection, uncovering hidden attackers targeting financial entities, expediting post-incident investigations, and identifying compromised data.
Vectra’s strength lies in its advanced machine-learning algorithms that detect subtle patterns in network traffic and customer behavior, particularly those targeting financial institutions. The platform’s automated threat detection capabilities enable financial services companies to spot and address threats in real time, eliminating human intervention. This results in significantly reduced response times and enhances the overall operational efficiency of cybersecurity measures.
4. Kasisto
Kasisto has taken a remarkable step in enhancing customer experiences in the finance industry with its conversational AI platform, KAI. This platform has proven to be a game-changer by helping banks reduce contact center traffic through self-service options and solutions.
With KAI, customers gain access to account details, make payments, and conduct financial transactions independently without needing human assistance. AI-driven chatbots greatly study customer data and offer personalized financial advice, empowering them to make informed decisions about their finances.
5. Upstart
Upstart is committed to fostering inclusive and equitable lending practices, ensuring borrowers can access the credit they require to accomplish their financial aspirations. Unlike conventional lenders that primarily rely on credit scores and credit history duration, Upstart employs supplementary data points like educational background, field of study, and past employment records for credit assessment.
A distinguishing aspect of Upstart is its provision of more precise and tailored credit evaluations. This approach translates into increased approval rates and reduced interest charges for borrowers. Notably, individuals with limited credit records or those newly entering the workforce benefit significantly from Upstart’s innovative lending model, which once again emphasizes its mission of fairness and accessibility in the lending process.
Challenges of AI in FinTech
The integration of AI into the Fintech sector has brought about remarkable advancements in efficiency and innovation. However, as AI continues to evolve within Fintech, it’s important to acknowledge and tackle the challenges and risks it presents.
1. Privacy and Data Protection
Privacy and data protection emerge as critical concerns in AI within Fintech. Financial institutions and fintech companies must find a balance between leveraging AI to enhance services while safeguarding customer information.
This entails prioritizing the security of algorithms and implementing robust measures to protect against hackers. Additionally, stringent data protection protocols, such as encryption and access controls, are essential to ensure customer data’s ethical and secure utilization.
2. AI Bias
AI capabilities, while powerful, are not without flaws since AI still holds a certain degree of bias. Especially if your business struggles with numerous data science challenges, this bias will only worsen, leading to serious ethical concerns in AI-driven lending, investment strategies, and credit-scoring decisions.
To solve this, first and foremost, address data quality challenges and ensure transparency and fairness in AI algorithms. Regular audits and a commitment to ethical guidelines also need to be in place to identify and correct biased outcomes, facilitating a more equitable and unbiased application of AI in the financial sector.
3. Compliance
The Fintech industry operates under strict regulations, demanding extra diligence in complying with local, federal, and potentially international laws. This means that technical and legal teams need to collaborate closely from beginning to end to mitigate the risk of any future regulatory issues.
Given the evolving landscape of AI in Fintech, meeting compliance standards is only getting more and more necessary to sustain ethical practices and avoid serious legal complications.
4. Building Trust
Earning trust from customers and institutions isn’t easy, especially when people are cautious about where they invest their money. Moreover, skepticism towards AI adds another layer of complexity to this challenge.
To overcome this, prioritizing transparency is key. Offering clear explanations of how AI is used, ensuring fair practices, and maintaining open communication are crucial steps. Additionally, educating customers about AI in Fintech can go a long way in fostering trust and credibility, bridging the gap between innovation and apprehension.
Accelerate the Power of AI in FinTech with Neurond AI
AI brings enormous benefits to businesses in every industry, and Fintech is no exception. It transforms daily processes, elevates customer experiences, fortifies security systems, and more. The nine use cases highlighted only scratch the surface of AI’s influence on Fintech since there are still many more applications not mentioned here, such as risk assessment, portfolio management, and asset management.
To stay at the forefront of the Fintech industry, it’s essential to embrace AI and its future possibilities. And for those wanting to realize your exciting AI startup ideas, Fintech included, look no further than the custom artificial intelligence development services at Neurond AI.
Through a trusted advisory approach, we aim to be an extension of your team rather than just a service provider. Leveraging advanced AI technologies from machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing to computer vision, chatbots, and more, we are committed to taking your Fintech business to the next level with our high-quality and impactful AI solutions.
Ready to unlock AI’s power in your Fintech venture? Contact us now!