Niki.ai and HDFC Bank Create India's First AI Success Story

HDFC Bank's OnChat, the Facebook Messenger chatbot created in partnership with Niki.ai, has observed 160 percent month-on-month growth in transactions since its launch in December 2016.

The chatbot is the Bank's maiden foray into conversational banking. Since launch HDFC Bank OnChat has also witnessed an exponential growth in the number of users garnering over 2.4 million messages.

The number of repeat users, which is close to 34 percent, further bolsters the confidence in conversational banking. The Messenger chatbot also opened up yet another channel for customer acquisition, with nearly 25 percent of OnChat users being non-HDFC Bank customers.

Customers are using the bot to transact and use services that the chat bot offers, which highlights the adoption of a new way and platform to shop online - by simply chatting with the bot.

Using HDFC Bank’s OnChat on Facebook, one can transact for:
* Utility services like bill payments and mobile recharges.
* Travel services like cab and bus bookings.
* Entertainment services like movie bookings.

The data from millions of messages has helped Niki.ai strengthen its Natural Language Processing capabilities to achieve about 89.6 percent accuracy in understanding the user queries and responding accordingly. Training the systems with the available data using Machine Learning technology has also helped the bot to provide a more personalised experience to the customers and reduce the friction from discovering to choosing to buying stage.

To help facilitate a seamless experience, the bot is smart enough to decipher the natural way Indians converse. A mix of Hindi+English text message will not be a problem for the bot - “Rs. 50 ka recharge karna hai 987654321 par” will do the job.

The bot, built by Niki.ai, HDFC Bank OnChat, also happens to be India’s first bot to be able to send personalised communication (bill payment reminders, notifications etc.) to the customers as allowed by Facebook.

“We are excited by the response HDFC Bank OnChat has received. The idea behind OnChat is to allow customers to conduct transactions while they chat with friends on Messenger, thereby taking the user experience in the conversational banking space to the next level. We believe that harnessing new technology like AI and machine learning will help us transition from providing not just convenience to our customers, but a completely differentiated experience,” said Nitin Chugh, Country Head – Digital Banking, HDFC Bank.

Sachin Jaiswal, CEO, Niki.ai, said: “It’s been a truly amazing experience to witness Niki helping so many users for so many transactions right from Facebook Messenger via HDFC Bank OnChat. Keeping the online shopping experience natural and convenient has definitely worked, and we’re glad to have introduced a better way for customers to shop online.

"It’s as easy as talking to a friend. We look forward to working on more solutions for the bank.  In partnership with HDFC group companies, we’ll also be working on creating an insurance bot and a stock broker (which has been a winner in Digital Innovation Summit), which will take the overall banking experience to another level, through simple conversations.”