Proto's multilingual AI technology, designed for inclusive access to the financial complaints process regardless of gender, income or geography, has earned enthusiastic support from African central banks, representing a total population of over 300 million. From this total, approximately half are female, a consumer segment traditionally underrepresented in financial inclusion and national financial complaints processes.
Following its recent success as a finalist at the 2019 Alliance for Financial Inclusion Global Polcy Forum in Kigali, Proto has received ten letters of intent from central banks across all regions of Africa. These regulatory authorities share the same mandates in empowering its customers, while employing automation technology to reduce operational costs associated with financial inclusion activities, especially in rural areas.
Proto's proprietary chatbot and complaints management system allows all citizens — regardless of gender, ethnicity, location, income level, or education — to lodge complaints via SMS and messaging apps against commercial banks, micro-lending facilities, and e-money providers. The Proto advantage utilizes natural language processing (NLP) and deep-learning technology to automatically understand customers in emerging markets, with regional partnerships that employ local machine learning engineers. In Africa, Proto has selected the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences as its recruitment partner.
Proto CEO Curtis Matlock says the company is fundamentally committed to financial inclusion, especially among underserved populations. “We look forward to partnering with African central banks with a special focus on empowering women and youth with this automated financial consumer complaints solution.” Matlock adding, “In many cases, this chatbot will be the first instance of these populations being empowered in their local language by their governments in the resolution of their most pressing financial matters.”
In 2018, Proto was recognized for a first-of-its-kind, multilingual chatbot and financial complaints processing system developed for the Central Bank of the Philippines, administered by the RegTech for Regulators Accelerator and Rockefeller Philanthropy, and sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Omidyar Network, and USAID. The system recently won the AI Prize at the 2019 Central Banking RegTech and Fintech Awards.
About Proto
Proto, the market-leader in AI Customer Experience (AICX) solutions for multilingual contact centres, serves emerging markets and customer segments with a vertically-integrated customer experience product suite and proprietary natural language processing (NLP) engine for non-English languages. Proto's deep-learning technology and domain expertise increase automation rates and maximize customer lifetime value.
