Absa partners with Kasisto and Blue Turtle to enhance client digital experiences

Absa Regional Operations (ARO), Absa Group Limited’s subsidiaries outside of South Africa, has partnered with Kasisto and Blue Turtle to deploy KAI, Africa’s first conversational artificial intelligence (AI) powered virtual banking assistant.

Kasisto is the  creator of KAI, a digital experience platform for the financial services industry while Blue Turtle Technologies is a Johannesburg-based enterprise technology partner.

ARO has partnered with Kasisto and Blue Turtle based on KAI’s proven conversational AI technology and Blue Turtle’s ability to assist Absa to plan, implement and transform their customer digital experience strategy.

Absa’s virtual assistant helps customers in its African markets with their day-to-day banking needs and questions. Customers can find out information about Absa’s banking services, account information, the nearest ATM, information about new products and services, what types of services require them to come into a branch, how to access mobile wallet and more, all through intuitive and intelligent digital conversations directly via the virtual assistant.

In addition, Absa said its virtual assistant will be available over the company’s website as well as a fully secure WhatsApp Business account.

“At Absa we believe in helping our customers bring their possibilities to life. So, when we set out on the journey to improve our customers’ digital banking experiences we knew we needed a Conversational AI technology that was proven and a partner that was local. The partnership between Kasisto and Blue Turtle provided just that,” said Vimal Kumar, ARO chief executive for Retail and Business Banking, Digital and Customer Experience. “Together we are providing Absa customers a more personalised, digital banking experience that no other bank in the region can offer”.

With close to $100bn in assets, approximately 40,000 employees and presence in 12 countries across Africa, Absa is one of the top players on the continent.

“Everyone at Kasisto is excited to help power Absa’s mission with a virtual assistant that is trained on tens of millions of financial questions, and that allows Absa to deliver important self-service and financial wellness capabilities, and industry-leading digital experiences to their customers within Africa – this is an important market for us,” said  Zor Gorelov, CEO and co-founder, Kasisto. “We are also delighted to be working with our partners at Blue Turtle who bring local technical expertise and know-how as we all work together to enable ARO to leverage the power of Conversational AI.”

Justin Arnoldi, head of Digital Transformation at Blue Turtle added: “Our passion for innovation, customer success and our partnership with Kasisto, made us a great partner for ARO as they bring a new digital banking experience, based on a Conversational AI powered and industry leading virtual assistant to their customers. Our strategy is to help banks like Absa integrate meaningful digital solutions that help them to engage, transact, gain insight and more accurately predict customer behaviour. We look forward to working with Kasisto and ARO to bring further digital possibilities to life.”