Tech Updates Emphasize Smart Interaction & IoT Authentication

The steady progression and importance of artificial intelligence, machine learning, smart assistants, and Internet of Things capabilities into the consumer experience and financial technology was apparent in three recent announcements.

Tulsa, Okla.-based interactive and intelligent customer self-service solutions company ENACOMM, which provides financial services companies with data analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing announced a new reseller agreement with FoneLogix, an Atlanta-based provider of cloud-hosted VOIP phone systems, solutions and support.

Through the partnership, FoneLogix’s credit union and bank customers can take advantage of ENACOMM’s VPA, a personal virtual assistant for financial institutions self-service users; and the ENACOMM Financial Suite, which includes a hosted, interactive voice response system for personalized customer interactions.

ENACOMM CEO Michael Boukadakis said. “We’re excited for FoneLogix to help us make ENACOMM’s best-in-class AI and biometric technology that powers conversational banking more widely available, especially with the digital voice assistant channel set to grow exponentially over the next five years.”

Applying artificial intelligence, VPA works with widely-used virtual personal assistants, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Utilizing ENACOMM’s hosted systems, a properly authenticated user can safely handle banking transactions and gain access to their financial accounts.

The ENACOMM Financial Suite provides a range of software tools, from voice biometrics to customer relationship management, as well as added levels of security. ENACOMM’s data-powered IVR solution uses customer intelligence to direct calls and personalization, and provides context preservation.

“Consumers are ready for conversational banking, as their rapid adoption of voice assistant devices and preferences regarding customer service channels show,” Mitchell Bridges, FoneLogix Principal and VP Sales & Marketing said.

Another update, Atlanta-based fintech firm VSoft, announced several new enhancements to its product suite. They include natural language processing for its digital banking platform, Arya, which powers the platform’s live chat functionalities by consolidating input channels to enable a comprehensive cross-platform response set. This allows credit unions and banks to engage with account holders via multiple channels such as chatbots, SMS, Facebook Messenger or smart assistants.

VSoft also updated CoreSoft, the company’s core processing system, to permit the system to run using HTML and the latest Angular technology, an open-source front-end web application framework; and added new archive and research capabilities for its OnView payments products, which now support the retrieval of processed ACH transactions. VSoft also announced that soon OnView will support the retrieval of wire transfers and real-time payments.

“VISION is our opportunity to highlight the latest feature functionality in the VSoft product suite and showcase what’s next for our company,” Murthy Veeraghanta, chairman and CEO of VSoft said.

Melbourne, Fla.-based NXT-ID announced it received a U.S. patent entitled “Distributed Method and System to Improve Collaboration Services Across Multiple Devices.” The patent introduces the concept of collaborative services across multiple devices to utilize common data or algorithms to recognize and authenticate a user for purposes of performing a variety of actions across many devices. It enables devices without specific authentication hardware or software components to leverage the capabilities of nearby devices or contribute by sending data to an authentication service.

“This technology improves the security and operation of the IoT by enabling multiple devices to work together to improve accuracy and convenience,” David Tunnell, CTO of NXT-ID articulated. “Now, instead of simply authenticating with a single device, multiple devices may work together to identify and authenticate users.”

Tunnell added, this introduces numerous possibilities for collaborative services in the future as the IoT grows. “Beyond authentication, these collaborative services can include jointly performing tasks or jointly providing services to the user.”