Customers of Zopa Bank can now use voice commands to instruct an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered personal digital banking assistant to make transactions and request advice.
The bank’s Ask Zopa feature understands and acts on instructions given by customers using conversational language, with the promise of removing additional manual processes.
The AI agent, which comes with the bank’s Biscuit account, can make payments for account holders, send money to their friends, and even calculate and pay a user contribution to a split bill. It “understands, remembers and personalises experiences”, said Zopa.
It can also make recommendations to people on reaching their financial goals through conversations.
Zopa, which pioneered peer-to-peer lending in 2005, closed that business in 2021, reinventing itself as a bank. It now has about two million customers and 300,000 holders of its Biscuit current account, which it launched last year.
Ask Zopa, which was built on the bank’s proprietary AI platform and agentic architecture on top of publicly available models, is the latest addition to the Biscuit account. The feature has been trialled with selected customers, but is now available to all those with a current account.
Clare Gambardella, chief customer officer at Zopa Bank, said the AI agent will remove more manual processes: “It will help customers manage and automate their finances, complete day-to-day banking tasks, and plan and optimise for the future.”
She said it can “execute on tasks in the app” and “give information or perspective”, all through the medium of voice, or text if preferred.
“Because it has context and can see as much information as you want it to, in terms of connecting accounts or other things, it can start to give a helpful perspective on how to meet, for example, a savings goal.”
Zopa recently added more tech know-how to its board with the appointment of Paula Walter, former Aldermore Group chief technology and information officer, as an independent non-executive director.
“Her experience managing considerable budgets and working with regulated entities is really going to be an addition for our board as we look forward to scaling Zopa even further,” said the bank.
Walter said: “Zopa has a clear ambition to make money management simpler and better for customers, underpinned by an impressive technology platform and culture. I’m excited to join the board and help the business continue to innovate responsibly, strengthen its resilience and deliver exceptional customer experiences at even greater scale, supported by AI-led change and innovation.”
AI is driving cost savings, as well as improving customer service at banks. Last year, Zopa released the findings of a survey carried out with Juniper Research, which revealed that UK banks will save £1.8bn over the next five years as a result of investing the same amount in AI.
The survey found that 187 million hours will be saved, mainly as a result of back-office efficiencies.
Last year, Zopa announced its plan to upskill and reskill 100,000 banking professionals in AI disciplines by 2030, through an industry coalition. The initiative launched in May this year, after 22 partners signed up.
The five-year Jobs2030 campaign offers modules in AI disciplines for fintech workers, specifically engineers, analysts and operations leads. Participants receive training tailored to the UK banking sector.
