A question worth thinking about, with the development of financial technology, about 80% of the personal business of banks can be handled at mobile banking APP or network intelligent counters. With the outbreak of generative artificial intelligence technology, will the intelligent transformation of bank counters accelerate in two or three years?Rollingthunder2? Apart from special counters such as the elderly, will most of the other manual counters disappear?
Chinese reporters of securities firms have read the 2023 annual reports of listed banks and found that digital and intelligent transformation is a necessary topic. In terms of offline channels, the transformation of intelligent equipment in bank outlets has been repeatedly mentioned, including "streamlining counter business processes", "enriching intelligent counter functional services", "outlets to light operation" has become the direction of bank network operation reform.
Smart devices in the annual report
From the statement of the annual report of listed banks, empowering the network operation with digital technology has always been the pursuit of digital transformation of the banks, and the self-help and intelligent equipment of the network is the key carrier of the intelligent operation of the network.
A Chinese reporter from the brokerage firm combed and found that ICBC has about 1.Rollingthunder2There are 550,000 bank outlets, including 21000 self-service banks, 76200 smart devices and 53700 automatic teller machines. It is equivalent to that each network has been equipped with several self-service or intelligent financial instruments.
In the configuration of self-service channels, the Construction Bank has more than 48100 self-service teller machines and more than 43400 smart teller machines by the end of 2023. It is worth noting that at present, CCB has increased the investment in self-service equipment at county outlets, setting up 15100 self-service teller machines and 13100 smart teller machines in the county, and 1120 self-service equipment in 1120 key help counties.
For Agricultural Bank of China, the proportion of counter staff reached 17.8%. The bank said that it will continue to promote the construction of a unified platform for intelligent terminals, develop pilot intelligent low-cabinet systems, and at the same time reduce the efficiency of equipment. By the end of 2023, the Agricultural Bank of China had 54900 super counters, 53700 cash self-service equipment and 3200 self-service terminals.
In addition, the Postal savings Bank said that it has greatly improved its self-service equipment and mobile exhibition service capabilities, adding nearly 200 new financial functions and more than 300 banking business functions, building a new "cloud cabinet" remote service model of "online and offline" omni-channel cooperation, promoting more than 6000 outlets, and accessing a total of about 8000 ITM (intelligent teller machines), STM (super teller machines) and other devices. By the end of 2023, the bank had a total stock of 135000 self-service devices, of which 50600 were ITM, accounting for 96.37% of the self-service devices without cash business functions.
Among the joint-stock banks, China Merchants Bank (600036) and CITIC Bank (601998) disclosed specific data about the terminal equipment of the network. Among them, at the end of 2023, China Merchants Bank had 2226 self-service banks, 5281 self-service devices and 7603 visual devices, while Citic Bank had 1529 self-service banks, 4482 self-service devices and 9131 smart counters.
Urban agricultural commercial banks are also sparing no effort to update self-service equipment. Take Shanghai Agricultural Commercial Bank as an example, the bank has a moderate preference of resources to suburban branches in terms of network and staffing. By the end of 2023, the bank had put in a total of 672 intelligent teller machines and 82 intelligent low cabinets in suburban outlets.
The coverage of "cloud counter" and "digital teller" is expanded.
For banks, network operation has rigid costs in terms of hardware and manpower, while online operations and offline self-help intelligent equipment brought about by digital transformation have brought a practical cost reduction effect for the use of bank outlets to release human labor and improve operational efficiency.
The "Research on the Development Strategy of Intelligent Transformation of Banks driven by Financial Technology" released by the China Banking Association three years ago shows that in recent years, represented by intelligent teller machines (STM), intelligent self-service devices at outlets have been rapidly adopted and promoted by commercial banks, and with the process of electronic and automatic transformation of the transaction process, the manual replacement rate and business departure rate of network services have gradually increased, initially forming "customer self-help." The service mode of "staff assistance as a supplement".
It can be observed that after the development in recent years, the digital transformation of the traditional counter business of commercial banks has achieved remarkable results. The common scenario is that customers go to the network to handle business, and most of the process business can be handled on the self-service intelligent equipment terminal with the assistance of the network staff, and the queuing to the counter has been greatly reduced.
At the same time of the intelligent transformation of offline outlets, many banks have set up services such as "cloud counter" and "digital teller".
1. Ping an Bank (000001) deployed virtual digital human in the bank's network equipment, mobile phone APP and other important platforms to reduce the amount of manual work. at the end of 2023, virtual digital human helped about 45% of the retail operation audit work volume to achieve automatic examination and approval.
2. The Postal savings Bank has about 8000 self-service equipment to promote the application of "cloud cabinet" remote authorization. At the same time, the application of AI digital staff on the "cloud cabinet" provides customers with business consultation, business management and other services through the gradual and question-and-answer guidance of AI digital staff.
3. The "enterprise cloud counter" of Minsheng Bank (600016) promotes the online "one-stop" processing of high-frequency public business, and the average timeliness of reply letters on the block chain e-mail verification platform is increased by 78%. Through automatic identification of vouchers, business processing automation, system direct connection and data sharing, greatly replace manual operation.
At the same time, from the disclosure of the annual reports of listed banks, the transformation of terminal aging services is also a major aspect. For example, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China said that it will speed up the transformation of the aging service of the intelligent terminal, realize the automatic switching of the large print interface after the elderly customers log in, and place the high-frequency use function of the elderly customers on the home page to reduce the threshold for the use of self-service equipment for the elderly customers; the Construction Bank said that it will continue to optimize the aging and barrier-free services of the network, and constantly improve the service facilities suitable for the elderly and disabled customers, such as seated smart teller machines. The Agricultural Bank of China said that it will optimize and upgrade the big print version of Zhangyin to enhance the experience of elderly customers.
Will the counter "disappear"?
For banks, because the intelligent counter can better and better simulate human interaction and decision-making process, the intelligent customer service system will be more humanized, and the development of generative artificial intelligence technology can indeed promote the intelligent transformation of artificial counter.
If we say that 80% of the traditional counter business has been diverted through wired channels, with the development of generative artificial intelligence, can the remaining 20% of the high-counter business be almost replaced by intelligent devices?
“预计随着互联网技术的发展，尤其是AI技术的发展，未来两年左右的时间，银行网点用智能设备代替人工会是一个加速的趋势。”科蓝软件(300663)高管近期作出自己的行业预判。该公司的智能高柜数币机器人已经在国有银行、股份制银行和省级农信联社完成试，并致力于解决的即是线下业务的智能转型。
但对于高柜是否会完全消失，多数银行业务人士表示，传统柜台或将经历一场智能化改造，但仍然会保留一部分人工窗口。
对于上述问题，在青岛银行(002948)首席信息官杨斌看来，高柜可能不会完全消失，但会逐渐与人工智能柜员（AIGC）结合，以提供更优质的服务。随着智能设备的更广泛应用和智能体验的提升，可以预见会有更多的智能柜台出现，以满足客户的需求。同时，随着远程银行服务的普及，客户可以通过智能设备远程访问银行服务，无需亲自前往银行网点。这种结合将使客户能够享受到更快速、更高效、更智能的银行服务体验，同时为银行节省资源和成本。
对于发展趋势，杨斌认为，人工柜台的智能化转型会是一个加快的趋势，但是技术的成熟度是关键。虽然生成式人工智能技术在不断进步，但在涉及复杂决策、情感交流等方面，仍然存在挑战。需要时间和资源来不断改进技术，以确保智能柜台可以胜任更多的任务。其次，银行业务涉及客户的隐私和财务安全，智能柜台在数据处理和客户身份验证等方面必须符合严格的法律法规。确保智能柜台的安全性和可信度是推动智能化转型的重要因素。