IBS Journal December 2016
09
Emirates NBD tests virtual banking assistant
the MENA region’s first voice-based and chatbot virtual assistant for banking. The FI’s Future Lab is piloting Eva’s voice capabilities via a user group for calls to its customer service centre.
E
“Eva will soon be an exciting new addition to our customer service toolkit, acting as an intelligent virtual assistant to help customers with their banking needs,” says Suvo Sarkar, senior EVP and group head of retail banking and wealth management at Emirates NBD. “Eva will usher a new era of instant customer service via a human-like conversational interface.”
In the first phase of the pilot, the virtual assistant will understand the customer’s request and route directly to
mirates NBD is gearing up to launch Eva,
the appropriate menu solution both via voice and chat, allowing self-service where possible, or routing to a customer service agent to resolve the query. In the near future, customers will be able to start a conversation over chatbot and continue via voice across multiple devices.
Scott Thompson Klarna swoops as Cookies crumbles
payment app Cookies, which recently filed for bankruptcy, is joining Swedish FinTech Klarna. The startup was founded by Garry Krugljakow and Lamine Cheloufi, who met when they were working for fellow German firm Number26 (now known as N26). In early November, the venture announced it was calling it quits following a spat between the co- founders and a lack of funding.
T
Klarna emerged during the insolvency process and had the best offer on the table. In a blog post, Cheloufi says: “The last news about Cookies haven’t been very positive. That’s why today, I am particularly pleased to share a very exciting message. Klarna, one of Europe’s leading and most successful FinTech companies, is taking over the technological assets as well as the employees of Cookies. I am thrilled to become part of Klarna together with our strong team and take on new innovative projects out of Berlin. For us, this is a unique chance to join Klarna and benefit from their wealth of expertise, tech and talent. Now we want to devote ourselves to what we are best in –
he team behind German peer-to-peer
building user-friendly products.”
Details of said products have yet to be revealed. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Kruglijakow is the one Cookies team member not making the jump, following his fall out with Cheloufi.
Scott Thompson
www.ibsintelligence.com
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