Set to launch in May, Volan is a new private bank targeting affluent Australian clients. Although it has not received a banking license from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, the institution holds its Australian Financial Services License.
Volan plans to provide multi-asset customer services, multicurrency accounts, and margin lending facilities. It will also introduce advanced features such as facial recognition technology to expedite the account opening process, reducing the timeline from six to eight weeks to just one to two days for clients.
Co-founder Hayden Matthews aims to challenge the current nature of private banking. He told FinTech Futures:
“The big private banks are on borrowed time. They are too big which means it’s difficult to be agile and adopt new technologies. This is our advantage but also why we readily embrace fintech and the opportunities it provides.”
Continued Investment in AI
Investment in AI continues to reach new heights, with the global market hitting $142.3 billion in 2023. Corporate investment worldwide surged by $5 billion annually from 2020 to 2022.
Banks, including Volan, are seizing the vast opportunities AI offers. Jamie Dimon, CEO of Chase Bank, hailed it as “extraordinary and groundbreaking” in a letter to shareholders. Chase now boasts over 300 AI use cases, spanning customer experience, risk management, marketing, and fraud prevention. The bank is also exploring generative AI, large language models, and ChatGPT.
As AI adoption grows, financial institutions must tread carefully due to strict privacy regulations. No technology is without flaws. Recent findings indicate risks associated with ChatGPT and GPT-4, as they may “hallucinate” or generate inaccurate responses.
For now, it’s safer to incorporate these tools to back office of operations for automating repetitive tasks rather than client-facing functions.