BRI Soon to Present Chatbot Services for Customers

Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) will issue a chatbot platform as one of the company's solutions to keep it in line with technological developments. To implement this technology, BRI cooperates with Kata.ai as the developer.

The presence of the chatbot is expected to be able to serve BRI customers to access banking services anytime and anywhere via their smartphones.

"We will inaugurate the BRI chatbot on our 122nd anniversary, which will fall on December 16, 2017," said BRI Executive Vice President Kaspar Situmorang on the sidelines of a panel discussion held by Kata.ai, Tuesday (12/12).

Separately, to DailySocial, Kaspar explained that for the time being the new chatbot could serve standard banking features, such as checking transactions, info and promos, and others. This chatbot can also only be accessed via the Facebook Messenger messaging platform. The company is likely to bring this chatbot to WhatsApp next year.

According to him, the presence of chatbots can be the company's strategy to increase engagement with customers, as well as efforts to attract new customers. Currently, BRI has 52 million customers spread across Indonesia, while internet banking and SMS banking users reach 16 million customers.

Application of chatbots in banking

BRI will be the third bank to implement chatbot technology in Indonesia, after BCA with Vira and BNI with Cinta (in collaboration with Bang Joni).

BCA presents chatbots to provide the latest information and promotions, as well as banking transactions ranging from checking balances, checking account mutations, credit card info, and administration. Vira is present on three messaging platforms, namely Facebook Messenger, Line, and Kaskus Chat.

Meanwhile for Cinta, BNI customers can carry out banking activities through conversations via Facebook Messenger and Direct Messages on Twitter. Chatbot Cinta is also presented in BNI mobile banking with the Chat Now option.