Financial sector grows hand in hand with AI: 5 trends for 2021

In recent years, significant progress has been made in the creation of digital solutions and in closing the gap between the physical and the virtual. This process has accelerated in the last year and is expected to continue to develop in 2021. 

According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in 2020, the fintech sector grew by 40%. Therefore, it is expected that, in the current year, the sector will grow even more, hand in hand with technological components such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this regard, TryCore estimates that at least 25 billion things will be connected by 2021 through AI and that it will be included in all technological services. 

AI has expanded into all areas of our lives, where companies have resorted to it to solve the most important challenges. Thus, we find it in the financial, industrial, commercial, health and telecommunications sectors, among others.  

According to McKinsey's "Global Survey the state of AI in 2020", organizations are using AI as a tool to generate value and increase their revenues, as they have increased their profits by more than 20% since its implementation. Hence, International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that investment in AI by 2023 will be US $97.9 billion. In this sense, it is important to know what will be the AI trends and their uses that will continue to contribute to the transformation of fintech. 

Artificial Intelligence Trends in 2021

Voice biometrics systems. They are a tool based on AI that is responsible for identifying and analyzing the speech of a person, in order to validate their identity when performing any process, through the recognition of voice patterns. This is possible because the vocal apparatus of each individual is unique and, therefore, its imitation is not possible. Consequently, one of the advantages offered by voice biometrics is security. 

Currently, different applications have included voice and facial biometrics systems for digital authentication of users. The Colombian technology solutions company Nuvu has created a contactless enrollment application that guarantees security by means of biometric and biographic validations to mitigate fraud and impersonation. 

Chatbots and Voicebots. Through natural language processing and AI, it is possible to establish a real-time conversation between artificial agents and people, using the keyboard or voice. Thanks to machine learning technology , people's intentions and emotions are captured to provide an agile and empathetic response. Its use provides advantages, including improved customer service, adaptability to the user and multitasking capacity. 

Blockchain. It is a single, consensual and distributed record across multiple nodes in the network, which is achieved through AI. The blockchain helps prevent fraud and prevents loss of information. 

On the other hand, theimplementation of AI will be indispensable for the development of credit scoring, data management, fraud prevention and risk management in 2021. Thus, AI will continue to help in the creation of predictive models that facilitate the granting of loans by the financial system, identify suspicious practices, detect unusual activities and forecast information for decision making, among other aspects.