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ICICI Bank’s 200 robots process a million transactions a day
Bank claims it has enabled employees to focus more on value-added and customer-related functions
Robots have entered bank branches in India as ICICI Bank has deployed ‘software robotics’ with 200 robots processing a million transactions every day.
India’s largest private bank on Thursday announced the deployment of ‘software robotics’ in over 200 business processes across various functions of the bank.
“At ICICI Bank, software robots have reduced the response time to customers by up to 60% and increased accuracy to 100% thereby sharply improving the bank’s productivity and efficiency. It has also enabled the bank’s employees to focus more on value-added and customer-related functions. The software robots now perform over 10 lakh (a million) banking transactions every working day,” the bank said.
The bank claims to be the first in the country and among few, globally, to deploy software robotics.
Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank, said, “It will also enable our employees to focus on more value-added services while having better work-life balance. I believe the implementation of software robotics will herald a transformational change in the Indian banking industry.”
“We plan to more than double the software robots to over 500 by end of this fiscal,” she said.
Last month, rival HDFC Bank had said it would soon get robots in its bank branches to assist bank customers. It will soon deploy its first product of ‘Project AI (Artificial Intelligence) robots’ in one of its branches in Mumbai, where it will largely act as a receptionist who can analyse customer behaviour and provide services accordingly.
Japan-based Bank of Tokyo, and Mitsubishi and Mizuho Bank are seen as the inspiration behind the moves of HDFC and ICICI. Last year, Bank of Tokyo had launched a 1.1-foot tall humanoid ‘Nao’; Mizuho Bank unvelied ‘Pepper’, 121 cms or just over 4” tall, that helps customers. Pepper was developed by SoftBank, which sold 1,000 units in the first minute of online trade after launching the robot.
