Augmented reality (AR) technology enables the projection of digital information onto the physical world using devices like AR glasses or smartphones. Its implementation in the banking industry has the potential to enhance customer interaction with financial institutions and transform banking into a more engaging, efficient, and convenient experience.
You may have already experienced or learned about popular applications of AR, such as hunting for Pokémon or visualizing different colors for your walls and furniture arrangements. It’s undoubtedly fascinating, but you may wonder how this technology could be utilized in banking services. To demonstrate, let me walk you through a few exciting scenarios we’ve developed for our clients using our Fintense omnichannel digital banking platform.
Heads up – we will showcase some of these demos at FinovateEurope in March 2023, so feel free to visit us at our booth there if you are also there.
Personal Finance Management – overview of spending
By utilizing a smartphone camera, customers can access a range of information related to their Bank-issued credit card through Augmented Reality. Our mobile banking app can recognize the card and verify if the user logged in to the app is the rightful owner.
In this instance, the app presents an animated visual display of the user’s spending in the previous three months. This feature is built upon our Personal Finance Management (PFM) module, where all expenses are automatically categorized under specific labels such as Car, Utilities, Travel, and other relevant categories. Instead of displaying this information as multiple two-dimensional graphs, the user can now view their expenditure at a glance in a more captivating manner.
Personal Finance Management – status of current month’s planned budget
As users can define and monitor their monthly budgets for each category with the PFM module in Fintense, we can utilize AR to display the current spending status of their top four budgeted categories. Each category is represented as a 3D item with an accompanying bar graph.
The Car category’s bar graph is red, and the car object is pulsating, indicating that I have surpassed my planned car budget for the month (well, I should be walking more anyway). The other categories are still in the green or yellow zone, so I am on track. This feature is particularly advantageous when shopping, allowing me to check if I have room for additional purchases or not at a glance.
Viewing expense locations on a 3D map
Would you like to see precisely where you used your credit card? While we could display this information on a standard 2D map like Google Maps, where’s the excitement in that? Picture a 3D map of your expenses levitating above your credit card.
Actually, you don’t need to picture it; take a look here:
The map showcases the locations of all the points of sale where I used my card within the selected time frame. Each location is categorized and color-coded according to PFM. By merely rotating my credit card below, I can rotate the map, and bringing my smartphone closer to the card allows me to zoom in for a closer look.
Peer-to-Peer Payments
Let’s explore a more complex AR application: sending money to another person (known as Peer-to-Peer, or P2P transfer) by simply placing their credit card beside mine. The app will recognize my card on the left side (since I am currently logged in), request to view the recipient’s credit card, and enable me to select the amount of money to transfer by “tapping” virtual AR buttons that appear over my card.
You no longer need to enter the recipient’s account number into your banking app or rely on third-party money transfer services. To execute this scenario, the app must extract the text from the recipient’s card and use one of the available methods for card-to-card transfers, such as Visa Direct.
Buy Now-Pay Later
How do you envision shopping in the future? In our latest concept, we aimed to illustrate just that.
Here’s the idea: a bank teams up with a retailer to offer immediate consumer loans for in-store purchases. When a bank’s customer enters the store and spots an item they like – an iPhone, for instance – they can open the bank’s Fintense mobile app and use their smartphone camera to view the product. The app recognizes the store & product and presents relevant information in vivid AR, such as videos, images, and text containing the product description, along with a dynamically generated instant loan offer.
The customer can tap the blue virtual button that appears over the smartphone box to learn more about the offer and accept it. Once they agree to the loan terms, the app generates a coupon QR code for the cashier and authorizes the purchase in the retailer’s backend systems. This scenario combines two modern digital banking features – Augmented Reality and Buy Now-Pay Later instant loans.
In addition to use cases above, AR can also be used to enhance the customer experience at physical branches. For example, banks can use AR to create interactive displays that provide information on products and services, or to help customers navigate the branch and find what they’re looking for. This can make it easier for customers to find the information they need and make more informed decisions about their financial choices.
Overall, the use of AR in banking has the potential to improve the customer experience and make banking more convenient and efficient. As the technology continues to advance, it will be interesting to see how it is integrated into the banking industry in the future.
Check out https://www.nfinnova.com/ for more information about our Fintense digital banking platform and latest trends in digital transformation of banks.
Vladimir Stojic
Head of PreSales & Channel Partnerships
