Elevating Customer Experience with Multilingual Digital Banking

Over the last few years the Indian banking sector has been on an aggressive trajectory. The country’s biggest banks have recorded phenomenal growth in Tier 1 capital with HDFC reporting an impressive 50.01% growth closely followed by SBI and ICICI Bank. All the Indian banks collectively reported deposits amounting to $2 trillion as of July 2024. This burgeoning growth in the Indian banking sector can be attributed to higher disposable incomes, digitisation of the Indian banking system, various schemes being rolled out by the government to make banking accessible to all, smartphone and mobile data penetration, and advancements in technology. Despite all these advancements digital banking still remains inaccessible to a? majority of Indians even though we are the second largest online market in the world.?

With more than 750+ languages spoken across the length and breadth of our country, 57% Indian internet users access the internet in their native language. To make digital banking truly accessible banks need to make their apps and websites available in regional Indian languages in addition to English. They also need to integrate smart voice interfaces in Indian languages to make banking accessible to a sizable Indian population with disabilities.?

In this article, we will explore how multilingual digital banking can elevate customer experience and the role of AI-led language technology platforms in driving this shift.

The Current State of Digital Banking Accessibility in India

Traditionally banks and financial institutions have always had a physical presence in small towns and villages besides cities. However, with the rise in mobile usage and easily accessible ATMs more and more people prefer online banking for routine tasks like money transfer, card payments, balance enquiry etc. for the convenience it offers. But imagine this, a person not so proficient in English logs into your banking app but sees all the information in English and leaves. Similarly, there could be a customer not so proficient in typing and would rather prefer to search for information using voice commands in their language. There are many such scenarios which restrict people from fully leveraging the convenience of digital banking.?

The Urgency for Multilingual Digital Banking in India

The Government of India has made significant efforts to make banking accessible to all Indians by rolling out schemes like Swabhimaan Campaign and The Pradhan Mantri Dhan Jan Yojna. The digital payments system in India has also evolved with India’s Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) being the only system at level five in the Faster Payments Innovation Index (FPII). India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has also simplified real-time payments. India has the 3rd largest fintech ecosystem in the world with 600+ banks actively using UPI. The golden dream of “Financial Inclusion for All” is slowly turning into a reality but there is a significant challenge which is holding India back to fully realize this dream, non-availability of digital banking channels in India languages.

India has a population of approx 1.4 billion of which nearly 80% are more comfortable in their native language. English is not their first language but they are still active online browsing the web in their native language. The number of local language internet users has been consistently more than English language users since 2017, and this user base has experienced a healthy and steady growth. English proficiency in rural India is still quite low. Nirmala Sitharaman (Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs) has also in the past urged banks to prepare a cadre of officials well versed in local languages to better serve their customers. In her statement she said - “there is no point in banks claiming that they have a pan India presence when in some pockets, where Hindi does not work, their executives still need to learn native language to serve the customers.”? To make digital banking accessible to this group all the information has to be made available to them in their local language. Hence, local language support needs to be an integral part to achieve ‘Financial Inclusion for All’ in both online and offline banking.?

What does this mean for banks and financial institutions? To invest in localisation technology that enables them to make all mobile banking websites and apps, all interfaces of customer care support (voice and chat), all consumer education material (including documents, posters, and videos), onboarding forms and processes, and all digital transaction portals along with their terms & conditions in Indian languages. Today Indian language technology leaders like Reverie Language Technologies have in-house technology to enable banks to offer their digital services in Indian languages.?

The Case for Multilingual Digital Banking

Customer Engagement and Trust

Engaging customers in a meaningful way is the key to building trust, winning their loyalty, and ensuring they stay with your brand. Offering your customers the freedom to do banking in a language of their choice makes them feel understood, valued, and respected.

• Personalization and accessibility: By offering digital banking services in multiple languages, institutions provide customers with the ability to engage in a more personalized and comfortable manner. Whether through website interfaces, mobile apps, or customer support, being able to communicate in one’s native language significantly enhances the user experience.
• Trust and loyalty: Language accessibility is directly linked to trust. Research shows that consumers are more likely to trust brands that communicate in their language. For digital banking, this means customers are more likely to adopt and remain loyal to a platform that speaks their language and understands their cultural nuances.

Prevention of Financial Crimes

Inclusion is a core value for modern businesses, and multilingual digital banking helps ensure that no customer is left behind. Whether targeting customers in urban or rural areas or people with certain disabilities, a multilingual platform with smart voice interface integration opens up financial services to a more diverse audience. With information available in a language they understand, customers are less likely to fall prey to various financial frauds that are on the rise in this digital age.

• Reaching underrepresented groups: Offering services in multiple languages enables financial institutions to reach underserved markets, including non-English speaking communities, people with physical impairments, and those who face language barriers when accessing traditional banking channels or areas where there are no physical banks present.
• Breaking down barriers: Language is a significant barrier in financial inclusion. Multilingual digital banking platforms break down these barriers by making financial services accessible to people who might otherwise have difficulty navigating complex banking systems in a foreign language.
• Access to financial education: With cyber-crimes and financial frauds on the rise financial literacy is imperative for all. It also enables users to fully leverage the benefits of the contemporary banking system and optimally utilise core banking services. By providing information in multiple languages banks enable the deprived and underprivileged sections of society to be a part of the mainstream economy by generating awareness and easy access to core banking services.

To fully harness the power of digital banking both the end users and banks need to get a control over technology. From a consumer perspective this is only possible when they understand the language in which information is being communicated.

Enhanced Customer Engagement?

Digitalisation of banking services has happened at a rapid pace in the last one decade. However, despite banks investing heavily in building user friendly mobile apps and websites the customer engagement especially from rural areas for online banking still remains low. This is because? almost all online banking is in English. By investing in technology to build banking platforms, websites, and voice interfaces that support multiple Indian languages banks can expand their market share and get the first mover advantage. Major banks such as SBI, ICICI, and HDFC are now providing digital banking in Indian languages. This explains why they have a larger share of the market. However, even these banks have towards localising the entire customer journey.

Enhanced Operational Efficiency

By integrating multilingual chatbots to their websites and apps routine queries like account balance, transaction history, cheque book dispatch status, loan processing, KYC and more can be carried out faster and frees-up human agents to handle more complex issues and customer queries. With chatbots handling a significant chunk of routine queries in various languages simultaneously, scaling customer service without compromising on service quality and delivering a personalized customer experience can be done easily.

AI-led Language Technology for Multilingual Digital Banking

Localising all digital assets may seem like a daunting task for banks and financial institutions given the volume of data they carry, not to mention the regulations around customer data privacy and security. But with advancements in language technology localisation at scale is now possible. Anuvadak by Reverie Language Technologies is a website and app localisation platform that ensures seamless translation and localisation of your website and apps. Pioneers in the language technology space, with in-house NMT capability for Indian languages, seamless integration with your existing tech-stack, and industry specific customised localisation solutions Anuvadak takes the lead as a localisation platform for the Indian market.

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