Meet Mr.Bro: Canara Bank's new robotic employee

Main attraction of India's fully digital Canara Bank branch 'CANDI' is the customer care robot 'Bro'

Whenever you walk into a Pubic Sector Bank you expect a warm welcome.But,nowadays you hardly find it unless you are an HNI customer having crores of deposits.Customers are complaining about behaviour of bank employees.Each and every customer deserves a warm welcome and better treatment since banks run on their money.Banks are adopting various measures to improve customer service.

Canara Bank humanoid customer assistant Bro at CANDI(Canara bank digital branch)MG Road Bangalore.

Introduction of robots in banks also can be seen as a customer service improvement measures.Recently Canara Bank has launched its fully Digital branch named 'CANDI'(short for Canara Digital) in MG Road Banglore. Main attraction of this branch is a cute robot named 'Bro'. Bro is a smart customer service executive who can answer your queries regarding basic banking services ,products,interest rates etc..Apart from 'CANDI' The bank’s head office in Bengaluru already has a 4.5-foot Kannada-speaking robot called Mitra. 

Bro and Mitra provide information about the bank’s products, lending rates and schemes for students. When everything goes dull,Bro can respond to music beats and shake a leg.

This robot, with a HD camera in its head and the Canara Bank logo on its chest, answers close to 500 frequently asked questions

CANDI from inside

CANDI from outside

How Bro Works

Using voice sensors, it catches keywords in customer voice and responds to their queries. HD camera eyes captures customer movements and positions. Canara bank Officials say Bro will speak more local languages soon. Unlike other humanoids,the robot gestures and engages with customers in a life-like manner.Bro’s speech is casual, a change from the more formal style associated with usual robots.The robot was imported and programmed by the bank’s digital team.

Canara Bank isn't the only one experimenting with robots as customer assistants.City Union Bank, which launched the country's first banking robot 'Lakshmi' in Chennai in November 2016. .

HDFC Bank launched its banking robot IRA in late 2016 in Mumbai, which greets customers and takes them through the various services.While most robots today largely serve as information kiosks and basic customer assistants, they are likely to be integrated with core banking systems and artificial intelligence soon or later.

Watch video of Bro                                                                                                                        Video courtesy Deccan Herald 

What are the benefits of this robots to the bank

-Better customer satisfaction

-It is not easy for public sector banks to keep one staff exclusively for customer care service at each branch.Now robots like this cost around 5 lakh. On mass production it will come done to 1.5-2lakh. By deploying robots, number of employees can be cut down and productivity of employees will also improve.

-Cost to keep a robot is much less than salary of a bank staff.

-Young customers will be attracted by innovative services like this.

Watch bro dancing for gannam style

In near future more and public and private players will go for robotic banking. This is also a good chance for startups and other companies in the robotic and artificial intelligence(AI) field.Indian Banks are fast evolving to compete with its global counter-partners. More investments and innovations are expected in digitalization process of bank branches.'Bro' and ''CANDI" are just a beginning.More innovative ideas and solutions will make our banking more easier and comfortable.

JioPhone:features,specs and how to book it

Reliance JioPhone features specification dataplans and how to book JioPhone:

Reliance's free JioPhone aims India's billion dollar-strong market

Reliance jio launched country's first 'free' smartphone for getting more Indian online.Reliance industries chairman Mukesh Ambani announced the official launch of JioPhone on 21 July at reliance AGM 2017.Eventhough phone is taged 'free', buyers has to spend refundable fee of 1,500 rupees ($23.30).

JioPhone will be available for user testing in beta form from August 15.Booking will start from 24th July. JioPhone will be physically available to those who have pre-booked, on a first come first serve basis, September onwards. The company will make available 5 million phones every week . The deposit will be refunded after 36 months on the return of the phone. Voice calling will be free for life while unlimited data packs will cost Rs 153 a month on the device.

Important features of Reliance JioPhone

Quaoting the words of Isha Ambani , Akash Ambani and kiran thomas from Reliance AGM2017.

JioPhone is an awesome innovation,made in India by young Indians for all Indians.JioPhone i may look familiar but it is intentional.It is designed to be extremely easy and friendly to use.It is the most intelligent and affordable phone.

Network:It is 100% 4G LTE phone

User Interface and Languages:It has a revolutionary and unique user interface.JioPhone will support 22 major Indian languages.

Revolutionary Voice command Interface:Still using the keyboard you can simply speak to the phone.You can make calls and SMS using voice command.You can also enter SMS text by simply speaking.Simply intelligent,agreed??.You can even brows internet using your voice.Your search results will also be narrated by phone.Jiophone not only just listen in english,it is capable of understanding other languages also.

Pre-installed Jio Apps:Reliance JioPhone assures unlimited entertainment with preinstalled jio apps like JioTV,JioMusic,JioCinema etc..

JioPhone Life saver(sos):On long pressing button 5 ,JioPhone will automatically send distress message to your dear and near ones.You can save emergency contact to which distress message will be sent.

It also send you exact position(latitude and longitude) to your emergency contact.This is an invaluable feature of the JioPhone.

Very soon jio will integrate local Police and Emergency service to this feature.

JioPhone TV cable:This is useful for remote parts of India where cable TV and high speed internet is not there.Young JIO engineers have developed a special and affordable Jio Phone TV cable that connects Jio Phone with any television screen.Not just smart TVs ,even your old CRT TV can also be connected using this specially designed cables.Simply put, you can project your JioPhone on to big TV screen.

A special monthly plan of Rs.309 is also there for such users.

NFC Digital Payments:JioPhone will be introducing NFC(Near Field Communication) technology soon. All indians can link their bank accounts,Jandhan accounts, UPI accounts or any other payments cards to JioPhone and make payments using simple tap of Jiophone.This feature will be automatically added with phone software updates.

JioPhone Voice and Data Plans

Like any other JIO SIM plan,voice calls are life time free.For JioPhone users JIO DHAN DHANA DHAN plan is available for Rs.153 per month.And for JIO TV cable users there is a special monthly plan of Rs.309.

Jio phone Specification

JioPhone Spec presented at reliance AGM2017 JioPhone Launch event

Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani has not yet reveiled complete specifications of JioPhone.But here is the speculations of JioPhone specs.

• Display:QVGA  2.40-inch,Resolution240x320 pixels
• Expandable storage typemicroSD upto 128GB
• SIM slot:Single sim GSM,4G LTE
• Connectivity:Bluetooth v 4.10,NFC
• 512 MB RAM
• 4 GB internal storage
• 2MP rear camera
• 2000mAh battery

How to book a JioPhone

If you are already using a smartphone go to playstore and download MyJIO application.You can pre-book the JioPhone using the My JIO app. If you don't have access ti MyJIO app you can visit a Jio retailer from August 24. It is worth mentioning that theReliance Jio Phone will be up for pre-orders starting August 24. It will be available from August 15th on the first-come-first-serve basis.

The target is to make 5 million phones available every week.

Watch highlights of Reliance AGM2017:JioPhone launch