Personetics: An AI-Powered Banking Platform Built to Help Institutions Deliver Better Digital Experiences and Products to Customers

In a Nutshell: As banks compete with fintech startups for the attention of consumers, Personetics delivers visionary financial institutions the tools they need to compete and engage customers in the digital age. The AI-based platform believes banks — with their rich access to data — should be taking an approach to customer engagement and product offering similar to that of Amazon. The company helps banks engage customers and boost satisfaction levels through products like Engage, Act, and Assist, which work like virtual financial experts. Personetics uses the valuable data the banks already have to help customers proactively manage their, automate savings, plan budgets, and control much more of their personal finance.

Ally Bank is known for its focus on customer service — from its products and services to the support it provides. The bank is also known for not shying away from innovative, technology-based solutions to better serve its customers.

So, when Ally Bank was looking for a new solution to help its customers optimize their savings potential, the institution turned to Personetics.

Ally Bank leverages Personetics’ AI-based technology to engage customers at an individual level with a new Auto-savings program.

“The Personetics program asks Ally Bank customers if they want to join its auto savings program,” said Michal Wachstock, Head of Global Marketing at Personetics. “When they opt-in to the program, it will automatically spot pockets of available savings and transfer them into a savings account, up to a certain amount per day, and a certain number of days a week.”

“We have other clients doing similar programs and we’ve seen their customers save over $2,000 a year when they didn’t even think they had these kinds of funds available,” Wachstock said.

Ally Bank’s Auto savings program is just the latest of many ways in which Personetics is changing the way banking institutions engage with its customers in a personalized way that delivers true value to their experience.

“Trusted by millions of customers, Personetics enables the world’s leading financial institutions to transform the way they engage and serve their customers in the digital era,” according to the company website.

Wachstock said that when Personetics launched nearly 10 years ago, the Co-Founders — David Sosna and David Govrin — were interested in providing banks with the ability to know their customers as well as a company like Amazon knows theirs, if not better.

She said this much should be expected in the digital age.

“Banks are sitting on all of our transaction data but banking customers aren’t getting the level of personalization and insights you’d expect from an organization so central to our lives,” Wachstock said.

Michal Wachstock is the Head of Global Marketing at Personetics.

Wachstock said the fact that customers aren’t receiving this level of service from most banks is a missed opportunity. But Personetics is working to change this through the use of its AI-based technology and innovative solutions.

“A customer should know that they could depend on a bank to lead them in the right direction and make smart financial recommendations to them to financial wellness,” she said. “There are visionary banks that are deciding to go in this direction and are working to provide their customers with insights, advice, and recommendations to improve their financial wellbeing.”

She said that Personetics has seen trust levels go up among customers of these visionary banks. Other banks, that have much of the same rich transaction and location-based data either don’t know how to leverage the data to the advantage of the bank and its customers — or don’t even know they should be using it all.

But Personetics does know how to leverage this data.

“We bring a unique combination of financial services domain expertise — tightly embedded into a cognitive application framework using AI, predictive analytics, machine learning, and natural language understanding technologies — to deliver a personalized experience that helps customers better manage their financial lives,” according to Personetics.

“Personetics Engage is a new breed of banking solution, one that truly puts customer needs first,” according to the company website. “It provides timely and useful insights that keep customers informed and help them stay on top of their financial affairs.”

The platform uses real-time predictive analytics to empower customers, and helping banks reestablish themselves as trusted partners to the consumer, according to the company.

Personetics’ AI-based platform helps financial institutions connect with and engage customers to boost loyalty.

Engage uses predictive analysis to help bank customers optimize their finances and potentially save money. While banks are building trust with the customers, all banks are also thinking of their bottom line and need to ensure that they see a return on their investment.

“Banks are starting to understand that by treating customers respectfully, engaging with them, and showing them intimate understanding of their financial needs, that is when you see loyalty increase,” Wachstock said. “Rather than making money off their customers with penalty fees or overdraft fees, banks are understanding that financially healthy customers will have larger balances in the future and will want to continue banking with them.”

By helping customers avoid penalty fees, customers are able to keep a greater share of their funds in the bank and have increased loyalty, Wachstock explained.

The platform essentially helps institutions deliver the right information to the customer at just the right time.

“Engage analyzes user-specific transaction data to create a personalized list of actionable insights,” according to the company. “To determine the optimal prioritization and display order for each user, we utilize a proprietary learning algorithm that identifies and ranks the most relevant insights at any point in time.”

This may play out in the program identifying that a customer is paying for a recurring Apple Music subscription and a Spotify subscription. With the help of Personetics analysis, the customer can be alerted to this to determine if they’d like to cancel one of these subscriptions and save money.

The software can also identify unusual account activity, provide personalized insights based on spending patterns, and offer tips on how to save more.

The fintech ecosystem is currently rife with innovative startups that offer consumers automated money management and savings programs that help them advance their financial goals.

At the same time, automated savings programs offered by banks and credit unions are largely outdated and inflexible, according to Personetics. They fail to address individual needs and expectations of customers in the digital age.
‍
“With Act, financial institutions can offer automated money management programs that are tailored to each individual and self-adjusting to changes in spending patterns,” according to the company.

Watch on
Ally Bank’s auto savings program falls under the Act umbrella, with its smart savings for customers.

“Powered by AI, Act continuously works on behalf of your customers to help them meet their financial objectives,” according to the company.

Act can help customers get ahead of long-term savings goals, such as retirement and college, and help users save for short-term goals as well, such as an automobile purchase or paying off debts, according to the company.

‍The program works hand in hand with each customer to meet their individualized needs and goals by continually analyzing their dynamic financial situations and recommending appropriate actions.

“Always analyzing the customer finances, it identifies opportunities to make progress towards these goals — automatically executing transfers and payments on behalf of the customer or suggesting recommendations for the customer to act on — learning and optimizing these actions over time,” according to Personetics.

“Visits to the bank are going down and the dependence on digital relationships with banks are going up,” Wachstock said. “It’s a trend we’ve been seeing for a while now.”

She said Personetics believes the banks that are utilizing the AI-driven company’s innovative solutions as part of their digital transformation are going to be the ones that succeed in the future.

“They know digital transformation is a big word and digital engagement is a big part of that transformation,” she said. “Interacting with your bank to transfer funds is one step, but if you’re also interacting with your bank to manage, save, reach financial goals, and more, that’s a whole other level and we’re happy to be taking our banks on this ride along with us.”