Commonwealth Bank of Australia's (ASX:CBA) banking app is going to advise people what to do with their money.
CommBank's latest version of its app, 4.0, plans to offer "greater personalisation, tailored specifically to the individual needs of each customer, with personal cash flow management and smart alerts all aimed at keeping more money in customers' wallets".
The idea is that the app will use machine learning technology, deep data analytics and behavioural science to deliver 'smart banking'.
Angus Sullivan, CommBank Group Executive of Retail Banking Services said, "The CommBank app has been helping our customers manage their finances for close to a decade. We're now approaching the 2020s with the most individually tailored and sophisticated adaptation of digital banking in Australia.
"This is designed to give our 5.6 million app users greater control and visibility of their cash flow, including real-time insights into their spending behaviour, to help them achieve their goals and improve their financial wellbeing."
One of the benefits that CBA talked about was that the technology will enable banks to proactively switch customer subscriptions with non-banking services to automatically take advantage of peak pricing and volume discounts. Automatically getting the best deal sounds good to me.
Will this help CBA and its customers?
Perhaps it will be beneficial to a lot of people, although others may not appreciate being told what to do with their money in terms of spending it or saving it. However, helping customers get the best deals would certainly be welcome and useful.
I guess it depends if CBA customers think this tech is worth staying loyal for, although I imagine other banks like ING, Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC), National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB) and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) are, or soon will be, working on their own versions of this oferring.
This is a cool update, but I think it's more relevant for CBA customers rather than investors.
