Across Southeast Asia, banks and financial institutions are entering a new phase of digital transformation. Customers increasingly expect financial services to be available instantly, whether they are checking balances, resolving account issues, applying for loans, or interacting with support teams across mobile apps and messaging platforms.

Southeast Asia’s financial sector is also expanding rapidly as digital adoption accelerates across the region. According to Google, Temasek and Bain & Company’s e-Conomy SEA 2023 report, the region’s digital economy is projected to reach US$600 billion in gross merchandise value by 2030, with financial services and digital payments playing a central role in that growth.

Artificial intelligence is emerging as one of the key technologies helping banks navigate this transition. McKinsey estimates that AI could generate up to US$1 trillion in additional value annually for the global banking industry, driven by improvements in customer engagement, fraud detection, and operational efficiency.

In particular, conversational AI is gaining traction as institutions look to automate routine customer interactions, support digital onboarding processes, and provide real-time assistance across voice, chat, and video environments.

The rise of conversational banking

Conversational AI has rapidly become a central component of modern digital banking strategies. Deloitte notes that the majority of customer interactions with banks now occur through digital channels such as mobile apps and messaging platforms, increasing the need for scalable automated support systems.

Traditionally, banks relied heavily on call centres and human agents to handle customer enquiries. While effective, these systems often struggled to keep up with growing volumes of customer interactions, particularly as mobile banking adoption surged across Southeast Asia.

AI-powered conversational systems are now helping financial institutions automate many of these routine tasks. Virtual assistants can respond to frequently asked questions, guide users through account services, and provide real-time support through messaging platforms and mobile applications.

In many cases, these systems operate in hybrid environments where AI handles initial interactions while human agents step in for complex issues. This allows banks to improve response times while ensuring customers still receive personalised assistance when needed.

For financial institutions operating in multilingual markets like Southeast Asia, conversational AI also helps scale customer engagement across languages and regions while maintaining consistent service quality.

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A partnership targeting Southeast Asia’s financial sector

Across Southeast Asia, banks and financial institutions are increasingly exploring conversational AI to improve customer engagement and operational efficiency.

As demand grows for faster, more responsive digital banking experiences, technology providers and system integrators are forming partnerships to help financial institutions deploy AI-driven interaction systems at scale.

Similar collaborations are emerging across the global financial technology ecosystem. Banking software provider Temenos, for example, has partnered with Microsoft to integrate AI capabilities into digital banking platforms, enabling financial institutions to automate customer engagement and improve operational efficiency.

Another example in Southeast Asia is a collaboration between real-time engagement technology provider Agora and Vietnam-based IT services and digital transformation company FPT, aimed at accelerating conversational AI adoption among banks and financial institutions across the region. By combining Agora’s real-time engagement and conversational AI capabilities with FPT’s enterprise integration expertise, the collaboration supports digital banking interactions across voice, chat, and video channels, enabling workflows such as customer support, payment enquiries, lending interactions, insurance onboarding, and multilingual customer engagement across regional markets.

Real-world deployments across the banking sector

Enterprise adoption of conversational AI within financial services is already gaining momentum.

In Singapore, DBS Bank has deployed AI-powered virtual assistants across its digital channels to handle routine customer enquiries, helping reduce response times while allowing human agents to focus on more complex financial services. OCBC Bank has taken a similar approach with its AI-powered chatbot “Emma”, which assists customers with home loan and banking enquiries through digital platforms.

In Vietnam, Sacombank has implemented AI voice agents as part of a next-generation AI contact centre initiative. The deployment increased call handling capacity by more than 58 per cent and allows the system to manage up to 41,000 calls per day, improving service responsiveness while enhancing overall customer experience. 

Similarly, Vietcombank uses Intelligent Virtual Assistant VCB Digibot across messaging channels to answer common customer enquiries related to loans, cards, interest rates, promotions, and currency exchange information. By automating routine requests, bank staff can focus more on complex customer needs and advisory services. 

Another example comes from Home Credit Vietnam, which uses AI voice agents to automate large volumes of call centre interactions each month while maintaining consistent service quality across its customer operations. 

These deployments illustrate how conversational AI can improve operational efficiency while also helping financial institutions handle rapidly growing interaction volumes.

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Balancing innovation with trust and compliance

While AI-driven automation offers clear efficiency benefits, financial institutions must also navigate increasingly complex regulatory environments.

Across Southeast Asia, banking and financial services organisations operate under strict frameworks governing data protection, electronic systems, and consumer safeguards. Any new digital infrastructure must therefore meet rigorous standards for security, privacy, and operational resilience.

Solutions built for the sector must be designed to operate within these regulatory boundaries while still delivering real-time engagement capabilities. For example, Singapore’s Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has introduced technology risk management guidelines that require financial institutions to ensure robust cybersecurity, system resilience, and responsible use of emerging technologies when deploying digital services.

These frameworks highlight the need for AI-powered banking solutions to balance innovation with strong governance, ensuring that automation improves customer experience without compromising regulatory compliance.

The next phase of digital banking in Southeast Asia

Looking ahead, conversational AI is likely to play a growing role as financial institutions across Southeast Asia modernise their digital infrastructure.

Financial institutions are also accelerating the use of artificial intelligence. According to McKinsey’s State of AI report, financial services is among the industries seeing the fastest growth in AI adoption.

Across the region, this shift is becoming visible in how banks manage customer interactions at scale. In Thailand, for example, Kasikornbank has expanded the use of AI across its digital banking services to support automated customer support and personalised recommendations within its mobile banking ecosystem.

Deploying conversational AI in financial services, however, requires more than new software. Banks must integrate real-time communication infrastructure, enterprise AI platforms, and secure data systems while operating within strict regulatory frameworks. As a result, partnerships between AI platform providers, real-time engagement infrastructure companies, and enterprise technology integrators are becoming increasingly important. These collaborations help bridge the gap between emerging AI capabilities and the operational realities of large financial institutions.

For banks facing rising customer expectations and growing operational complexity, the ability to deliver secure, intelligent, and responsive real-time interactions may become a defining factor in the next phase of Southeast Asia’s banking transformation.

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