Reverie Language Technologies highlights the lack of financial inclusion due to language barriers
Bengaluru, India 19th January: Reverie Language Technologies, a leader in Indian language localisation and user engagement technology solutions, has released a video campaign that highlights the difficulties faced by most Indians while banking online due to language barriers. Due to the dominance of English on the Internet, there is a grave digital divide between those who can and cannot navigate online services easily. Through their state-of-the-art AI and ML technology, Reverie is making financial services accessible to Indian language speakers in all 22 official languages.
The dilemma of digital, yet native languages first customer is captured through the video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux9xQbNsWAQ
The video delineates the disarming difference between the ease with which an English speaker can use online services like chatbots and digital channels and the tribulations a non-English speaker faces while trying to use automated services. 9 out of 10 Indians find it difficult to use banking products in English, alienating them and causing them to resort to using cash and more traditional means to handle their finances. The banker in the video story personifies a banking/Fintech app, website or integrated bot.
End-to-end, contextual language localisation is a must to replicate the branch banking experience. Trust is the most important component in banking, and to truly achieve inclusive growth, native languages must be imbibed into Internet banking solutions to make navigation easier and seamless with no dependency on English. Three pillars comprise Digital Bharat – first, the channel of access, which are smartphones/ smart feature phones, second, the pervasiveness and affordability of data and lastly, languages. The first two have been achieved, and now banks, companies and regulatory bodies must ensure language localisation as well to empower the unbanked to bank digitally.
“Banking solutions must be designed for citizens’ language choices first, rather than replicated from English first interface. Forget local languages; very few banks fulfill the 3-language policy in the country, making online banking cumbersome for people who don’t understand English. Our aim is to get people to access the internet intuitively by easing the transition process, and ensuring that banking augments their aspirations, rather than serve as an obstacle to it. Our technology trains voice and chatbots to equip them for natural human understanding, which allows them to understand direct instructions rather than go through multiple automated suggestions. We appeal that language as a choice should be integral to the mandatory Know Your Customer (KYC) process. ” said Vivekananda Pani, Co-founder and CTO at Reverie Language Technologies.
Capturing the spirit of “Athithi Devo Bhav:”, just getting the customers to the digital frontier is not enough, it’s important that they experience empowerment through democratisation of India’s financial custodians, be it core banking or platform led financial inclusion efforts.
Reverie Language Technologies works with major enterprises and government organisations by retaining the essence and nuance of all 22 official Indian languages across industries, especially for banking and financial services.