The future of banking technology could hinge on something that is not difficult to find: the voice. Developments in the field of voice technology mean that such capabilities will no longer be in the domain of science-fiction and could be commonplace in banking in the next few years.
Apple iPhone users have been using Siri, an assistant that receives spoken commands, since 2011. Although it may have been received by consumers as a novelty rather than something that can be used seriously, it marks a wider trend of voice-controlled devices. Whether it is speaking to a satellite navigation system in a car – instead of fiddling with a screen while driving – or speaking commands to wearables such as Google Glass, voice recognition is also expected to become more pervasive in a number of banking channels. Rather than typing and swiping through numerous pages of a mobile banking app, for example, the voice can be used to navigate through the options much faster.
