Banking Rebuilt, Part 3: Make it Easy!
In Part 1, I put forward a proposal for where I see banking, specifically payments going in the future. In Part 2, we stepped through how this can be achieved today technically - using AWS services, integrating APIs, even using Agents. However, this would only be available to a small audience of highly technical people with intimate knowledge of APIs and services like Amazon Bedrock AgentCore.
In this concluding chapter, I take a look at ways everyone can access and how to bring it to the masses.
Our target user is someone who is technically-savvy enough to use an App or a mobile web application (at a stretch). The easiest and most adoptable interface is to use natural language by way of a chat. Banks seem to be getting wise to this mechanism and instead of creating a single User Interface (UI) for the masses, the chat allows each Customer to create their individual journey. This has benefits for both the Customer and the Bank.
For the Bank, it means creating simpler Applications, shorter release cycles and the ability to innovate faster - without the burden of maintaining "legacy" functionality. For Customers, it means a simpler interaction mechanism - getting access to what you need instead of having to navigate multiple screens and options.
This comes at a cost. Think America Online (AOL)!
When it launched, AOL was a web portal that provided users with a curated/controlled view of the Internet. It provided access to news sites, email and chat rooms. Super simple and super easy to use. However, users saw/accessed the Internet through their walled-garden.
Similarly, banks are providing super simple, super easy mechanisms for their customers. It has evolved from standing in the branch, weekdays between 09h00 and 16h00, Saturdays until 11h00, to telephone banking (anyone remember the Toni ads?), to 24x7 internet/mobile banking and extended branch hours on a Sunday! And, to be fair, they do abstract away a fair amount of complexity.
But it is their view of how you access your money/information/data. Slapping on a chat interface to an App that needs to be downloaded/installed/updated/opened, then accessed using biometric authentication, then waiting for a one-time-pin does not work for me while I'm trying to make an urgent payment while trying to navigate Johannesburg traffic during a summer afternoon thunderstorm.
More adventurous and probably a little more tech-savvy users may have investigated and set up solutions like OpenClaw. This is an AI-assistant that you run on your hardware and accessible via messaging Apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. There are challenges - it does require initial setup and configuration. I've been a little wary as I've been concerned about security.
The massive benefit is that you can message your "Claw" to do something on your behalf. As an example, if it has access to your mail, it can periodically scan your inbox and check if there's anything to action. So - as you're driving home through a partially flooded road, keeping a wary eye on cars next to you, your Claw could be completing an online delivery form for a prescription for your daughter (true story by the way!)
So, where's the middle ground? And in much the same way that Netscape Navigator opened up the Internet, I believe that tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini will be the doorway to how people will use AI to access their data such as mail and messages and ultimately, banking.
This isn't science fiction - the building blocks already exist. Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini can all connect to external tools through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that acts like a universal adapter between an AI assistant and a service. In my prototype, I wrapped the bank's API in an MCP server and connected it to the assistant once - much like you'd give Gemini access to your Gmail inbox.
From then on, I could just ask: "Check my mail for new invoices and draft the payments for me to approve." "Is my electricity bill paid? What were my last 3 payments?" "Pay Mike R300 next Monday." No app to download, no screens to navigate - and I stay in control, approving any payment above an agreed threshold or to someone I haven't paid before.
You're probably thinking: great, but that still took someone who can build an MCP server. Like the flying cars we saw on Beyond 2000 in the 80s, even if it works, it'll only be available to a select few - which, to be fair, is exactly where those flying cars are today!
True, today it does. But once banks offer their own secure connectors, setup should be as simple as clicking "Connect". In the same way that almost everyone with a bank account and a capable smartphone has an installed banking App, I anticipate that this mechanism will become the new banking interface in the next 3-5 years.
My perspective is that banks are super aware of this eventuality - they must be! As highlighted in Part 1, some are preparing by opening access to allow their customers maximum flexibility to use the new tooling, some are creating super-comfortable walled-gardens hoping a happy customer will stay within the borders, some are still studying it, while others are doubling down keeping their head in the sand and their customers under lock-and-key.
Out of interest, anyone still using AOL to access the Internet?
Note: I work at Amazon, but this is my own opinion.
