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volume 10 • spring 2017
Mastercard announced last October the launch of a bot pilot program for customers of client banks and merchant partners. “Mastercard KAI, [which is Mastercard’s bot for banks] initially will be piloted with our em- ployees in the U.S. on Facebook Messenger and we will explore external expansion opportunities with banks based on the adoption of chatbots by consumers and the success of the program across Mastercard’s global footprint starting early this year [in 2017],” says Kiki Del Valle, Mastercard’s senior vice president, commerce
for every device.
As for the Mastercard bot for mer- chants, the company in late 2016 opened its bot commerce API on Mastercard’s developer platform so merchants easily can deploy Masterpass payments within mer- chant bots, Del Valle says. Master- card Labs developed the bot
commerce API for merchants in- house. To power the bot for banks, bot developer Kasisto licensed its KAI Banking on Messaging platform to Mastercard. Kasisto’s “conversa- tional AI platform understands the nancial industry well because it’s preloaded with thousands of bank- ing intents and millions of banking sentences,” she notes. An “intent” is the actual meaning of a person’s request. For example, an intent could be “ nd current balance.”
It’s a simple request, but can be phrased many ways, such as “what’s my balance,” “check the balance,” and many more, she explains. Mastercard KAI can support intents to search and review purchase history, learn about cardholder and travel bene ts, set spend controls with cardholder noti cations,
get information on Mastercard’s Priceless experiences and o ers, and get help with nancial literacy, she adds.
The KAI-powered Mastercard bot for banks enables U.S. cardholders to manage money, track expenses, analyze spending,
ask banking questions and receive o ers. Image courtesy: Mastercard
Meanwhile, Bank of America also announced in October 2016 the coming of a chatbot that it de- scribes as more of a “virtual assistant,” named Erica, that will use predictive analytics and cognitive messaging to do more than provide information, but o er suggestions on “her” own without being prompted by a customer question. For example, she might caution users if they’re in danger of overdrawing an account or recommend ways to improve users’ credit ratings. Erica is expected to be introduced in 2017.
Bot Bene ts
Not only is the chatbot nifty technology that promises to make shopping and banking easier for consumers, but early indications suggest it can strengthen relation- ships between companies and their customers as well as reduce operational costs.
“The goal will be to reduce call center costs while at the same time increasing customer engagement and revenue,” Oglesby says. “Chat- bots can be used to execute sales, answer basic servicing questions or, in the simplest of cases, ID customers and get them to the right human representatives.”
With the Mastercard bot for mer- chants, consumers will be able to shop and transact across multiple
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