ZiVA, the new chatbot on WhatsApp, lets customers undertake financial transactions and avail real-time customer service from their mobile phones
Zenith Bank head office building. (Credit: Kaizenify/Wikimedia Commons)
Zenith Bank, a Nigerian financial institution, has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) powered chatbot on WhatsApp called Zenith Intelligent Virtual Assistant (ZiVA).
The chatbot has been designed to let customers carry out financial transactions and avail real-time customer service from their mobile phones, said the commercial bank.
ZiVA is said to offer the convenience for the bank’s customers to interact as well as make transactions round-the-clock on the encrypted WhatsApp platform.
Zenith Bank said that the chatbot will respond to chats/queries anchored on the existing WhatsApp platform. Using the new personal banking assistant on WhatsApp, Zenith Bank’s customers can open new accounts, check their balances on the go, get instant transaction notifications, carry out funds transfer and top up airtime.
Besides, customers can confirm cheques, apply for loans, pay bills, block their accounts, and request mini statements apart from availing other banking services.
According to Zenith Bank’s group managing director/chief executive Ebenezer Onyeagwu, the launch of ZiVA has been driven by the necessity for more secured channels of communication with the bank’s customers as it deepens its retail penetration.
Onyeagwu said: “Since the behavioural pattern of the modern customer dictates that they want to engage with brands over the channel of their choice, it was really important for us as a leading financial services institution and a pioneer of several technological innovations in the financial services industry to implement this solution in order to continue to create value for our teeming customers who incidentally were already using WhatsApp as a primary channel of communication.”
Zenith Bank had previously launched an automated voice banking service that allows customers to undertake basic banking transactions by dialling a dedicated phone line from their registered phone numbers and following the prompts.