Page 24 - Banking Finance August 2025

ARTICLE

query resolution. Customers can get immediate answers
to their questions or complete routine tasks anytime,
anywhere, without waiting for branch opening hours or
call center queues. This 24/7 availability significantly en-
hances convenience.
Y Accessibility for Differently-Abled Individuals: Voice
technology is a powerful enabler for individuals with
visual impairments or motor disabilities. It empowers
them to manage their finances independently, foster-
ing greater autonomy and inclusion.

Operational Efficiency and Cost Reduction for
Banks
Beyond customer-facing benefits, voice and vernacular bank-
ing offer significant operational advantages for financial in-
stitutions: the complexities of grammar, syntax, semantics,
Y Automated Customer Support: A substantial portion and crucially, the nuances of various Indian lan-
of customer service inquiries are routine (e.g., balance guages, accents, and colloquialisms. It allows the
checks, mini-statements, branch locations). Voice AI system to decipher a user's intent even with var-
systems can automate these queries, significantly re- ied phrasing.
ducing the workload on human call center agents and o Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning: These
allowing them to focus on more complex, high-value are vital for continuous improvement. ML algo-
interactions that require empathy and problem-solving rithms learn from vast datasets of human speech
skills. and text, enabling voice models to become more
accurate and sophisticated over time. Deep learn-
Y Faster Processing and Reduced Manual Effort: Auto-
mating routine queries and transactions frees up branch ing, in particular, powers the most advanced speech
staff and reduces the need for manual data entry, lead- recognition and natural language generation capa-
ing to faster processing times and lower operational bilities.
costs. Y Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR): ASR is the tech-
nology that accurately converts spoken words into text.
Y Scalability: AI-powered voice systems can handle a
much larger volume of simultaneous interactions com- For Indian languages, ASR faces unique challenges due
pared to human agents, offering unparalleled scalability to their complex phonetics, vast vocabularies, and the
during peak times or periods of high demand. common practice of code-mixing (e.g., "Mera account
ka balance kitna hai?"). Recent advancements in ASR,
Y Reduced Training Costs: Simplified, intuitive voice in- often leveraging deep neural networks and pre-trained
terfaces can potentially reduce the need for extensive models on massive multilingual datasets (like OpenAI's
customer training on digital platforms, thereby lower- Whisper or AI4Bharat initiatives), are significantly im-
ing associated costs. proving accuracy for Indic languages, paving the way
for more reliable voice interactions.
Technologies Driving the Revolution Y Text-to-Speech (TTS): Once the AI processes a query

The rise of voice and vernacular banking is intrinsically linked and formulates a response, TTS converts that text back
to rapid advancements in several core technologies: into natural-sounding spoken language. The quality of
Y Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI is the brain behind voice TTS is crucial for a positive user experience, requiring
banking. voices that sound human-like, with appropriate prosody
o Natural Language Processing (NLP): This is the cor- (intonation, rhythm) and regional accents that resonate
nerstone. NLP enables voice systems to understand, with the local population. Companies like Sarvam AI are
interpret, and process human language, including focusing on creating authentic Indian voices that reflect

22 | 2025 | AUGUST | BANKING FINANCE