Russian Chatbot TalkBank Talks Banking

Many business leaders believe 2020 will be the year of the chatbot. But the future is now for the banking system.

TalkBank is a Russian- and English-speaking chatbot service that is intended for the banking industry. Its founders say it aims to replace the one-on-one bank teller experience. The service touts working for and with Generation Z by allowing users to pay, transfer and split bills, as well as collect bonuses and converse with the bot about financial advice 24/7. It can tell users their balance and let them know about special deals available for them through their credit cards. On the website, the bot says it takes only three months to integrate and increases revenue for banks by 45 percent.

Of course, having a bot work with the banking industry is not entirely new.

TalkBank was founded by Mikhail Popov, who, according to the website, has more than 15 years of corporate finance background. His team also includes Alexander Popov and Vladimir Kozhevnikov, who also have six years in the FinTech industry by founding Russian lending system EasyFinance.

In its first six months, TalkBank has partnered with two banks, raised pre-seed investment, acquired its first thousand cardholders and received awards in Russia.

The team raised the pre-seed round through the Internet Initiatives Development Fund.

The trio said that they want to bring banking to messengers by applying robots to all operations and communicating better with clients.

“We thought of building a bank that is conversational, intelligent, intuitive and available anytime anywhere. We use Natural Language Understanding to interact and technologies of AI and Big Data to make financial decisions fit every individual need,” Mikhail Popov told TechCrunch.

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