A recent survey of 3,000 Americans conducted by Mastercard and Mercator reveals that the new wave of virtual assistants has already started changing how we engage and interact in our lives. Survey Research indicates that nearly 9 out of 10 adults in the United States are aware of natural language processing (NLP) technologies and are beginning to grasp their beneficial impact on their digital lives.
The survey results presented here are divided into two categories. One is voice-based NLP agents such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google Assistant. The other is text-based chatbots that consumers commonly use to interact on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, iMessage, or directly on business websites.
The survey finds that two-thirds of the consumers who participated in the survey are already using voice assistants or messenger/text-based chatbots, and one in five are using them for commerce purposes. The most common uses for both voice-based and text-based agents are basic informational tasks like performing an internet search, finding the nearest restaurant, gas station, or store, getting driving directions, and giving simple commands to make phone calls, play music, and read or send texts or emails.
But a growing number of people are using this interface for more complex tasks, with 21 percent of respondents using this technology to shop, pay bills, bank online or send money.
Given the variety of conversational agents, devices, commerce applications, and branded providers, the user experience and security features for payments could vary widely. Here are four ways you can secure your transactions with a digital assistant:
. Keep It Secure: Always be sure to be on a secure and trusted WiFi network. When entering personal data and card information using a digital assistant, being on a secure network will help keep you safe and protected. Same goes for a voice assistant – never give out personal data and card information where you may be overheard.
. Activate appropriate controls: Most voice assistants offer some level of purchase confirmation. Adding a voice phrase, a special payment code or two-factor authentication can help minimize mistakes and prevent fraud.
. Recognize Links and Emails: Never click on any suspicious links or open messages from unknown senders. Since you will be typing in personal information throughout your digital assistant experience, always be sure to recognize the links and addresses so that you stay on the trusted pages.
. Feel Covered: Use a card that provides Zero Liability. That way even if fraud does occur, you are never liable for the fraudulent charges.
Over time, conversational agents will be able to accept cards more easily by simplifying how users receive prompts, notifications and feedback. By sharing consumers’ expectations with natural language processing interfaces, „we can help develop and modify standards for new technologies and deliver safer and more seamless user experiences.”, Mastercard said.
Proliferation of devices and agents add complexity in supporting payments
Financial institutions, merchants, and merchant services providers will need to support an array of devices as well as the two types of conversational agents. While smartphones and PCs will be the critical platforms to support initially, smart speakers are rapidly gaining adoption as evidenced by the 10% ownership levels found by this survey.
Similarly, payments stakeholders will need to accommodate a range of conversational agent/ device combinations. Today’s voice agent users focus primarily on Siri, OK Google/Google Home, and Alexa. This mix of technologies is sure to change as new devices are introduced that will drive changes in user base of each of the different voice agents.
Users of text agents today gravitate to Facebook Messenger, Twitter, iMessage, SnapChat, and Skype. Besides these common agents, they use chatbots embedded in merchant websites for various customer service functions. In this environment where a stored credential may be the only way to pay, trust in the platform and its provider will be critical.
MasterCard asked survey respondents to rate their trust in a variety of leading brands to provide services via voice or text agents. In general, leading e-commerce, financial, and wireless telecom brands/categories received the highest ratings, reflecting their ubiquity serving consumers in a trusted role.
Not far behind were leading technology brands that serve consumers in a virtual environment daily. Lower ranked were specific retailer brands with which some consumers surveyed may not have experience in either a physical or a virtual commerce situation. While it was clear that some individual brands had established a distinctive position of trust, trusted intermediary brands tended to have an advantage in the emerging conversational commerce environment.
Implications for Payments Stakeholders
Conversational commerce is off to a fast start, driven by the broad availability of voice and text agents over smartphones, PCs, smart speakers, and other devices, and 2 in 3 U.S. consumers are using these agents for informational and recreational uses. On the heels of this broad adoption, 1 in 8 adults have used these technologies to initiate a purchase transaction, behavior sure to become more common as consumers gain experience with conversational commerce and merchants enable more opportunities to use it.
The ability to make payment card purchase transactions securely and accurately will be a cornerstone for further growth. Payments stakeholders should have strong self-interest in developing best practices that protect cardholders and encourage the responsible deployment of conversational commerce payment technologies. Consumers should not only feel in control of their payments but also have ongoing visibility into how they are making a purchase regardless of the interactive channel.
Perhaps the most important questions to be resolved are how the user will be authenticated, the role of the merchant and issuer in performing that authentication, and the method by which the users will be assured they are participating in a safe and properly authenticated relationship. Additional areas of interest include the following:
To read the full Conversational commerce: A new opportunity for card payments report, please click here: Conversational Commerce Whitepaper.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
