NatWest trials Recordsure solution!

NatWest is trialling technology to give customers confidence that they are receiving suitable information and advice. The bank has partnered with Recordsure to explore how its RegTech recording and analysis solution could improve and monitor the quality of information and advice provided during regulated customer conversations.

With customer consent, Recordsure records face-to-face and telephone conversations, encrypts them and uploads the audio to the secure cloud in real time. The approach is designed to make the data difficult to tamper with, and the system sends an alert if the microphone is disconnected or if there is a long period of silence.

Secure records and conversation analysis

Customers and staff can listen back to conversations, which are securely stored on servers at former UK and US military facilities built to protect data and people in the event of a nuclear attack.

The artificial intelligence technology analyses an interaction and classifies sections of the conversation. It can identify where a customer was given initial disclosures, which parts were financial advice, and which parts were general chitchat. It can also identify whether certain topics or issues have not been discussed. The technology is constantly learning and improving its understanding of interactions and context.

Customer confidence and compliance oversight

Les Matheson, CEO of Personal and Business Banking, said NatWest wanted to restore trust and give customers complete confidence in the bank. He linked the trial to earlier changes, including scrapping bonuses for frontline staff so customers would know advice was based on their needs rather than commission, and said the bank looked forward to seeing how the trial could improve its service.

Joanne Smith, CEO of Recordsure, said NatWest had seen first hand how the technology could provide a better customer experience and improve compliance oversight for staff. She said Recordsure could create significant efficiencies in banks’ compliance monitoring processes, resulting in up to a 50% reduction in compliance costs, which would give staff more time to spend proactively helping customers. She also said the technology would help NatWest become better at living up to the high standards of compliance and conduct it had committed to.

Trial scope and wider NatWest innovation

NatWest is currently trialling Recordsure technology with some of its mortgage advisors and is considering how it could improve customer experience in other parts of the bank where regulated conversations take place.

The trial is the latest in a series of NatWest innovations introduced this year. In February the bank launched NatWest Invest, a self-service online investment service available to customers 24×7. It has also introduced paperless online processes that have cut account opening and SME lending applications from days to minutes.

The story was also featured by FT Adviser and Banking Tech, with links to the published coverage included as supporting sources.