The world of robots is dawning upon us, soon airports and public spaces will be occupied by intelligent machines with cognitive abilities accomplishing simple tasks like greeting passengers and cleaning up the floor. This wave is now taking place in a local bank here in Malaysia.

Hong Leong Bank together with IBM Watson have introduced their pilot robot ‘meter and greeter’ as part of the bank’s ‘Digital at the Core’ vision initiative and is the first in local banking industry that is designed to assist customers at bank branches.

The robot is able to interact, identify and match customer requests to various financial services offered by the bank, such as handling basic enquiries and directing customers according to their needs.

“Our meter and greeter pilot robot has two specific purposes, which are to alleviate resource requirements at the branches by interacting with customers within their first few minutes and will allow our staff to attend to more complex customer needs in the meantime. These benefits are two pronged and will definitely help in improving overall productivity of our branch teams,” shared Domenic Fuda, group managing director and CEO of HLB.