Fintech Pike Street Labs (PSL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of WaFd Bank, has launched an automated voice authentication feature for the bank in collaboration with Amazon Web Services’ Lex conversational artificial intelligence (AI) software and Talkdesk, a cloud contact center.

PSL creates technology solely for $21 billion WaFd Bank, formerly known as Washington Federal, Dustin Hubbard, chief technology officer at Seattle-based WaFd and PSL, told Bank Automation News.

The more sophisticated voice authentication software is designed to eliminate long customer wait times and create a more secure phone system through biometrics — and the combination of both Amazon Lex and Talkdesk’s capabilities allows the bank to do just that, Hubbard said.

“I wanted Lex to be the conversational AI component because I think Amazon has the best natural language technology, but also wanted an ability for clients to able to authenticate, prove they are who they are,” he said. “That’s where voice ID came as well, which was a product feature that Talkdesk had.”

‘My password is my voice’

Through the combined technology, WaFd clients are enrolled in the automated system by saying the phrase, “My password is my voice,” four times, Hubbard told BAN. This process links the customer’s voice patterns to a biometric profile, allowing the bot to recognize the client by their phone number and voice for secure bank transactions.

“Once [a client] is verified, then the bot will greet you and say, ‘How can I help you today?’” Then a client can ask “What’s the balance of my account?” and the bot will provide that information. It also can assist with completing transactions, help plan future payments or connect customers with a live agent.

The voice ID verification and conversational AI not only provide a more secure phone banking platform, but also reduce the time required to access customer accounts to 28 seconds from the previous system’s four and a half minutes, Hubbard said.

The technology “is just trying to help people self-serve better when needed and allow the human resources there for the more complicated transaction-type stuff,” he said.

Monitoring customer interaction

Looking ahead, PSL is monitoring customer interactions from the voice recognition technology and collecting data in order to alter and upgrade the system to better serve clients, Hubbard told BAN.

“The idea is that, as the bank grows, call center volume can be more focused on helping clients with real problems and not simple things,” he said.

For example, if customers are calling for the bank’s routing number but it’s not uploaded as one of the automated responses, the number gets added to the system, Hubbard added. “There’s ways to watch how people are interacting with the machine and then changing the responses so you can cut down on how many people are going into the call center,” he said.

The bank’s overall goal for the voice authentication software is to reduce call center needs and lean on the technology to answer simple questions, Hubbard noted.

“You want the call center to be used for complex, real interaction — not like ticky-tack stuff,” he said.

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