Designing Tablet Banking Apps for High-Net-Worth Individuals: Specifying Customer Requirements with Prototyping

Private banks with high-net-worth customers see a great potential in mobile information technology to provide more transparency in the advisory process. Previous literature has mainly focused on gathering requirements with regard to mobile banking applications targeted for retail customers or with regard to advisory services in physical proximity. This paper focuses on an mFAS which is designed for the private banking customer segment and facilitates location-independent customer relationships on a tablet. Furthermore, we specify previously established requirements with the Requirements Abstraction Model. In this study, we evaluated the requirements with a focus group involving seven domain experts. The results of this workshop suggest that most of the specified requirements meet the recommended practice for requirements specification. However, the experts only partly agreed that the presented requirements meet the completeness criterion, which guides future research endeavors

“Enforced” vs. “casual” transparency - Findings from IT-supported financial advisory encounters

In sales-oriented service encounters like financial advice, the client may perceive information and interest asymmetries as a lack of transparency regarding the advisor’s activities. In this article, we will discuss two design iterations of a supportive tabletop application that we built to increase process and information transparency as compared to the traditional pen and paper encounters. While the first iteration’s design was “enforcing” transparency and therefore proved to be a failure [Nussbaumer et al. 2011], we built the second iteration on design rationales enabling more “casual” transparency. Experimental evaluations show that the redesigned system significantly increases the client’s perceived transparency, her perceived control of the encounter and improves her perceived trustworthiness of and satisfaction with the encounter. With these findings, we contribute to (1) insight into the role of transparency advisory encounter design; (2) design solutions for establishing particular facets of transparency and their potential instantiations in tabletop systems; and (3) insight into the process of designing for transparency with socio-technical artifacts that are emergent as a result of design activities

Is an App Better than an Email? Developing Trust in a Mobile Financial Advisory Service - Design and Evaluation of a Prototype

Private banks see great potential in digital technologies for engaging with clients. Both practitioners and researchers believe that digital technologies, such as mobile applications, increase transparency in the advisory process and consequently raise trust, satisfaction and customer loyalty. This study proposes 5 design requirements (DR) for developing trust in a mobile financial advisory service. A first prototype was designed following the proposed DR. In addition, we conduct an experimental evaluation with 34 participants and compare the prototype with email communication. The findings provide mixed results on how a mobile application, designed according to the proposed DR, could increase trust and intention to use. With regard to overall satisfaction, the app was favored over email communication

Understanding Privacy Disclosure in the Online Market for Lemons: Insights and Requirements for Platform Providers

Future used car markets may use personal data to reduce information asymmetries between car sellers and buyers, e. g. on past driving behavior. Reducing information asymmetries is attractive for used car platforms as they can move from pure information provision to orchestrating transactions. However, car sellers and buyers have to agree to sharing personal data. What kind of data is interesting for them? Under what circumstances are they willing to share this data? What should a platform do to support data sharing? We explore those research questions as part of the Cardossier project by conducting experiments with the Car-Market Game, simulating a future car market. The results indicate that there is no market for pure personal data (e. g. photographs of sellers), but there is a market for car usage data. From future used car platforms the participants expect disclosure control and disclosure transparency in an environment free of interpersonal trust

Human vs. AI: Investigating Consumers’ Context-Dependent Purchase Intentions for Algorithm-Created Content

Increasingly digitalized media consumption is pressuring profitability in the content industry. Technological advancements in the realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI) render the potential to cut costs by applying algorithms to create content. Yet, before implementing algorithm-created content, content providers should be aware of the impact of algorithmic authorship on consumers’ intention to purchase said content. Accordingly, this study investigates user attitudes toward algorithmic content creation and their dependence on the underlying utilitarian or hedonic consumption context. In our online experiment (N=298), we find evidence for a positive effect of algorithmic authorship on consumers’ purchase intention. Even though the overall purchase intention is context dependent, this algorithm appreciation is independent of the content consumption context. Our study thus suggests that consumers appreciate algorithm-created content. Our results thus provide insights into the benefits of leveraging algorithms in order to maintain content providers’ profitability

Learning with facilitation affordances: The case of citizens’ advice services

How can employees be qualified to provide sound customer advisory services? How can they be empowered to deliver the value of public sector modernization to customers? In this paper, we offer a novel approach to qualify service personnel on-the-job using “facilitation affordances”. In this approach, artifacts, providing appropriately designed facilitation affordances, are introduced into service personnel’s work practices. These facilitation artifacts invite them to start experiential learning, and, hence, to improve their advice giving behavior. To develop our approach, we followed a design research approach, here we developed a set of design requirements and, ultimately, five design principles for facilitation artifacts. We tested our approach in the context of citizens’ advice services in public administrations. We implemented a prototype facilitation artifact and conducted a user study with six real-world advisors and twelve clients. Our preliminary results show that the “learning with facilitation affordances”-approach promises to enhance the service personnel’s skills that matter in modern public administrations. Furthermore, with the proposed qualification approach and the design principles for facilitation artifacts, we seek to deepen the knowledge on the importance of affordances for learning and, concurrently, provide practitioners with useful guidelines to implement the “learning with facilitation affordances”-approach in their organizations

When a computer speaks institutional talk: Exploring challenges and potentials of virtual assistants in face-to-face advisory services

Advisory services are a highly sensitive form of collaboration: they rely on a clear distribution of roles between human participants who act according to an implicit set of practices and scripts. As such, they do not offer a specific role to a virtual assistant. At the same time, the technological improvements make the promise that institutional settings may be soon complemented with technology that allows for asking questions using natural speech, understands the context, and provides answers based on online processing of data. This article explores challenges and potentials of virtual assistants in advisory services while analyzing data from interviews and a workshop with clients and advisors from financial advisory services. It links the insights from the field with the institutional talk perspective. The findings unveil, that the concerns and hopes of potential users relate to their position and an implicit understanding of what an advisory service is about. This calls for careful and attentive design approach towards virtual assistants in advisory services

Secondary Mental Models: Introducing Conversational Agents in Financial Advisory Service Encounters

When introducing unfamiliar Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based systems, such as conversational agents (CAs), one needs to ensure that users interact with them according to their design. While past research has studied single-user environments, many practical settings involve multiple parties. This study addresses this gap and focuses on financial advisory service encounters and how mental models evolve in multi-party contexts. A multimodal interactive CA is developed and tested in financial consultations with 24 clients. The observations of these consultations and subsequent interviews provide insights into the challenges of using CAs in unfamiliar contexts. The clients have difficulties effectively using the system. This is linked to the institutional setting of financial advisory service encounters and a mismatch between the designer’s conceptual model and the client’s mental model, which we call secondary mental model

Secondary Mental Models: Introducing Conversational Agents in Financial Advisory Service Encounters

When introducing unfamiliar Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based systems, such as conversational agents (CAs), one needs to ensure that users interact with them according to their design. While past research has studied single-user environments, many practical settings involve multiple parties. This study addresses this gap and focuses on financial advisory service encounters and how mental models evolve in multi-party contexts. A multimodal interactive CA is developed and tested in financial consultations with 24 clients. The observations of these consultations and subsequent interviews provide insights into the challenges of using CAs in unfamiliar contexts. The clients have difficulties effectively using the system. This is linked to the institutional setting of financial advisory service encounters and a mismatch between the designer’s conceptual model and the client’s mental model, which we call secondary mental model

Fintech cybersecurity challenges and regulations: Bahrain case study

Winds of change are blowing across the financial systems, with services and advancements in Financial Technology (FinTech) influencing all aspects of the financial sector and generating a continual stream of innovations. Despite benefits offered by FinTech, it creates new challenges that endanger financial institutes’ stability and integrity. As cyber-attacks increasingly threaten the FinTech industry, cybersecurity can be considered as one of the main challenges that need to be addressed to properly manage risks associated with integrating FinTech services in people’s day-to-day life. This Systematic Literature Review (SLR) highlights the cybersecurity challenges that FinTech industry faces and discusses existing measures that can effectively manage FinTech cybersecurity risks. An analysis of the existing literature and regulations is carried out to identify comparable components that exist across some internationally well-known cybersecurity standards and frameworks. Considering Bahrain as a case study, the paper explores key elements and factors that were not addressed adequately while implementing such standards. Research findings indicate that creating a cybersecurity framework for FinTech could be advantageous and offers a new perspective on the topic by demonstrating a natural extension of the existing knowledge. The findings offer useful suggestions for Bahrain’s financial regulators to get better acquainted with these aspects. It lays the foundation to develop a cybersecurity framework for FinTech specifically for Bahrain, and it endeavors to raise the level of cybersecurity and a trusted electronic environment for both the customers and service providers in Bahrain