NAB creates app for Google Assistant

NAB has created an app for Google Assistant that allows customers to use voice prompts to find information about the bank’s products and services.

NAB's app works with Google Home, but also newer smartphones.

The ‘Talk to NAB’ app – which NAB claims is an Australian banking first – can be accessed via Google Assistant running on a Google Home device, or Android or iOS smartphones.

To begin, the app is able to recognise and communicate information on set topics such as credit cards, loans or internet banking.

NAB has provided guidance on the types of questions that can be asked and answered using the service.

However, the bank indicated “this is only the beginning”.

“We’ll be continually looking to improve and simplify the experience, so we can answer more of your banking questions and perform more tasks,” it said.

The app is currently unable to call up information on a user's NAB bank accounts. The bank did not say whether it would look to offer such a service in future.

To engage the app, users have to command Google Assistant with “OK Google, talk to NAB”.

The Google Assistant app is NAB's latest foray into AI-powered interfaces.

Last month, it created a chatbot that could answer 200 common business banking questions with 13,000 variations. That service is currently in pilot.

NAB's online banking operation, UBank, has also built a chatbot for home loan applications, which is underpinned by IBM's Watson technology.