MANILA, PHILIPPINES — It’s just the start of the work day. Instead of queueing up at a nearby Starbucks on the busy hour, you pull out your phone and order from the reliable delivery app and have it delivered to your office. You sign in at work and the subscription reminder for your project management tool is the first email you see in your inbox. By mid day, the work tolls on and you’re tempted to book the cheapest flight out to the beach next month.
Digital subscriptions, ecommerce transactions, online travel, and hassle-free bill payment all underpin digital financial solutions as the “bedrock of all the transactions that’s happening” and the dominant driver of the third shift, as Google’s Country Director in the Philippines and Thailand Jackie Wang, calls it.
With the disruption as the preface of it all and a heavy hand on developing AI as an infrastructure, Google is quick to point out that transformation is the inevitable next step. Under this era, the untapped potential of personalization, efficiency, and stimuli will rise quickly to the surface.
The road to hyper-personalization
Because of the saturation in the market, consumers are increasingly swerving away from cookie-cutter products designed for general mass consumption — banking and finance are not spared from this.
The consumer attitude of being open to multiple financial relationships, combined offline and online touchpoint, is pushing towards a more curated, and therefore, connected finance services. The preference for straightforward and transparent does not, however, dissolves the nuances in each platform. Inclusion as the core to financial technology, an assortment of perks and flexible options are outfitted for each user regardless of their existing transactions and credit history.
This disruptive way that fintech has given broad accessibility to its services is one picture of winning consumers who are accustomed to the traditional way of finance. To be specific, a way to be always on, beating even longstanding customer relationships of offline banks to the punch.
Where does Gemini stand?
“We believe that by embracing AI, the financial sector really have a possibility to have a transformative growth,” said Jackie. Particular to Google, Gemini is embedded in its ecosystem and hence, even in its marketing solutions.
“What’s special about Gemini is that while many models are able to process one single type of information, Gemini was built as multilingual. What does that mean? It means that from the ground up, it’s able to understand and combine languages, images, text, video, audio and code all at once.”
We asked Gemini what role can it play in the reduction of risk and fraud management, and its best answer is automation — “Routine tasks like fraud screening, compliance checks, and risk assessments can be automated, freeing up human experts to focus on strategic decisions.”
Touched on by Jackie, she said the Philippines is not unique in experiencing cybersecurity threats, “Without this kind of AI technology, we won’t be able to look at the vast amount of data, that if we just rely on humans, we won’t be able to detect and catch them.”
At the product and service development front, Gemini says it can “Identify areas for improvement and recommend financial products and services aligned with individual preferences.” This is aligned with the spike of products like micro-insurance, buy now and pay later options, and money-lending services.
Case studies of best practices
The immediacy of seeing the spending habits and saving patterns is salient in shaping how financial services need to evolve. Put into digital context, the extent to which consumers go to inform themselves on financial matters are leveraged by ad performance tools like that of Google’s.
Security Bank, for example, reaped a wider audience from broad match targeting — backed by Google’s Performance Max in its campaigns. Meanwhile, for UnionBank, the narrowing to specific customer segments according to search queries resulted in double rate of credit card approvals.
Between Search campaigns and Performance Max, Gemini establishes itself as a viable enabler to engage and convert consumers, tapping the potential of companies to stretch their resources. Among the best bits, it frees room from the need to micromanage and manually optimize; which is a longwinded way to say that identifying the pains that AI needs solving still requires human oversight and collaboration.
“You’re not competing with AI, you’re competing with other people using AI,” said Jackie as to endorse the Google AI Essentials online course for upskilling and training the workforce.
If fintechs and online banks are keen on reinforcing customer protection and fine-tuning their services, losing its attractiveness is a problem for the far future no matter how foreseeable it is.
Past scaling and surging, this third shift now gives chance for the finance industry to stick the disruptive landing into maturity. And if the way to do that is to have that enabling component in engaging with money, all bets are on Gemini.
