Revolutionizing Financial Inclusion:
AI-Powered Personalized Support for Last-Mile Banking

Yixiang Xu, Rupalee Ruchismita, Ganesh Iyer

Proven Impact: Results from Our Large-Scale Pilot

Our recent 5-day pilot with 30,111 merchants in India who were divided into a control group (no personalization) and a treatment group receiving tailored, AI-generated video and text with market-specific product insights via WhatsApp on a daily basis.

Key Results:

12.8% increase in merchant engagement
25.1% increase in content completion
55.8% increase in positive feedback, including content usefulness, desire for more and willingness to recommend to other merchants

Tech Innovation Meets Financial Inclusion

In growth markets, where an estimated 1.4 billion individuals remain unbanked, reliable and consistent delivery of last-mile banking services remains a critical challenge despite technological advancements. This project leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI to enhance financial inclusion, focusing on the critical yet often-overlooked heroes of last-mile banking – the neighborhood mom-n-pop store owners acting as banking correspondents. Empowering these last-mile financial intermediaries could expand reliable access to basic banking services in underserved communities, potentially catalyzing an estimated $380 billion in annual economic value and fostering local economic development.

Collaborators

FINO Payments Bank

Anand Bhatia

  • Chief Marketing Officer

Atul Choudhari

  • Assistant Manager – Analytics

Grants
   
Lab for Inclusive FinTech (LIFT)
Retail Finance Distribution (ReFinD) Research Initiative
Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership, UC Berkeley
Clausen Center for International Business and Policy, UC Berkeley
Fisher Center for Business Analytics
Experimental Social Science Laboratory, UC Berkeley

Notes: A demonstration of the AI-generated FINO trainer relaying information about device-related troubleshooting.We generated more than a thousand of these insights ranging from product benefits, local markets, commissions, and operations.

The Challenge: Bridging the Last Mile in Financial Services
Local shop owners, acting as crucial neighborhood banks, often lack access to timely, actionable, and digestible local market-specific insights. This lack of support could lead to suboptimal service provision and reduced agent retention. Indeed, the industry faces significant merchant dormancy, with more than 30% merchants dropping off without facilitating a single financial transaction! Addressing this challenge is crucial for ensuring sustainable reach of financial services in underserved areas.
Our Solution: AI-Powered Personalization at Scale in Data-Scare Markets

We’re pioneering an innovative approach that leverages the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) to democratize content personalization for small fintech merchant support, bridging the data gap that has long hindered effective service delivery.

Key Innovations

  • AI-Powered Content Creation with Guardrails: Utilizing advanced Generative AI to create thousands of video and text content (fine-tuned LLMs for text, lip-sync AI for videos) with guardrails.
  • LLM-Powered Content Curation: Leveraging LLM to dynamically select and curate content, ensuring relevance to each agent’s specific context and needs.
  • Data-Efficient Approach: Addressing inherent LLM biases, such as preference homogenization, that arise from limited training data in emerging markets. Our LLM enhancement approach requires minimal local data for improved personalization.
  • WhatsApp Integration: Leveraging widely available mobile technology for seamless content delivery, ensuring accessibility even in areas with single device internet infrastructure.

Scaling up, Deepening Impact

Building on our successful pilot, we’re now preparing to scale this solution for a longer duration. Our 90-day scale-up phase aims to:

  1. Assess long-term impacts on agent business outcomes and local economies
  2. Analyze the evolving dynamics between AI-automated systems and human support
  3. Understand how sustained AI-powered support influences the composition and effectiveness of the financial agent network

Join Us in Shaping the Future of Financial Inclusion

This project represents a unique intersection of cutting-edge AI technology, financial innovation, and social impact. We’re seeking partners who share our vision of leveraging technology to drive economic growth and financial empowerment in underserved communities. 

Researcher Assistants

Yisen Du

  • Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Nikhil Goyal

  • Indian Institute of Technology-KGP

Varun Rao

  • Hindu College, University of Delhi

Project Selected for Conference Presentations:

Conference on Information Systems and Technology 2024

INFORMS Workshop on Data Science 2024