Otkritie’s Tochka Bank Launches the First Ever Financial Facebook Bot

Tochka Bank of the Otkritie Financial Group has launched the world’s first Facebook bot for financial purposes with payment capacity.

It will allow the bank’s clients (legal entities and sole entrepreneurs) to check their accounts, find nearby ATMs using geolocation, call the bank, contact the customer support and even make payments via the Facebook messenger. To use the bot, clients need to get authorised, just as when they use Internet Banking. Business people who are not yet clients of the bank may apply for an account and ask the Tochka team any questions.

“The current market trend is ambiguous: there are plenty of bots out there, but people do not understand what they are and how to use them. So the objective of our project is to develop an efficient script to further improve our service and deliver a smooth and exciting customer experience. We want to re-establish ourselves as a FinTech leader for SME banking, with a strong business model and cutting edge technology to suit the clients’ needs,”

says Elena Budnik, Chair of Otkritie Bank’s Management Board.

Tochka’s Facebook bot is linked to the bank’s Facebook account. To use the bot, a client simply opens a dialogue window and enters the left-hand corner menu: all necessary features are there. For example, if s/he clicks on the ‘ATMs’ tab, the bot will identify the client’s geographic location and give him/her a list of all nearby ATMs. If the client needs to ask Tochka specialists a question, s/he can also do it in the dialogue window.

“Almost all our clients are Facebook users solving their business issues, finding business partners and even conducting transactions through this social network. That is why, within a couple of days after the API was ready, we developed a solution to seamlessly combine the Internet banking, prompting and human interaction capabilities into the familiar Facebook Messenger interface,” explains Boris Dyakonov, Head of Tochka Bank and Senior Vice-President of Otkritie Bank.

Bank of America said earlier they were going to launch a Facebook bot for their clients in late 2016.

Tochka Bank is part of Otkritie, Russia’s largest private banking group. It gave up on conventional offices to become Russia’s first fully online bank for small businesses serving 40,000 businessmen across the country. Clients are offered mobile and Internet banking services (ranked as “Best for Business” by MarksWebb in 2015), a 24/7 online service solving any financial issues and the longest business day in Russia