Industry Guides
Jan 17, 2025
Deepak Singla
IN this article
With over 70% of fintech users relying on multiple financial apps, trust in emerging platforms is at an all-time high. However, common challenges like complex onboarding, payment failures, and lack of personalization threaten user retention. AI agents offer a solution by streamlining customer experiences, enhancing security, and personalizing interactions. This blog explores how AI can help fintech companies stay ahead by ensuring seamless, intuitive user journeys.
Did you know that over 70% of fintech users now rely on 3-4 financial apps to manage their money, seamlessly toggling between platforms that best meet their needs? Customers today are as comfortable opening accounts with new fintech companies as they are with national banks—indicating a shrinking trust gap between traditional and emerging financial services. But how can you ensure that your platform remains your customers' top choice six months from now, or even tomorrow?
As fintech adoption grows, so do users' expectations for smooth, intuitive experiences. But as with any tech product, users still face pain points along the way—lengthy onboarding, payment failures, lack of personalization, and security concerns—that can erode trust and loyalty. What truly matters is how you handle these challenges.
Enter AI agents. These intelligent tools have consistently proven effective in overcoming these pain points, helping fintech companies retain users by delivering smoother, more personalized experiences at every touchpoint. Let’s walk through the user journey and explore how AI agents can step in to address common issues while improving customer satisfaction.
Step 1: Onboarding Process
The first crucial touchpoint is when a customer decides to open an account or order a card with your company. However, onboarding is often fraught with obstacles—lengthy forms, document submissions, and waiting for approval—that deter users from completing sign-ups. Overwhelmed by the complexity, users may feel lost or unsure of the next steps.
AI agents shine here by breaking down this tedious process into bite-sized goals. With a layer of GenAI, AI can guide users through document submissions, answer real-time queries, and proactively remind them to complete missing information. Think of it as having your best onboarding agent sitting right across from the customer, helping them through the process. Unlike rigid forms, AI agents can fill out data using cues from users' interactions, eliminating redundancies, speeding up the process, and reducing friction.
Example: AI can automatically verify identification documents, flag errors in real-time, and streamline form-filling using previously collected data, making onboarding fast, smooth, and user-friendly. We have written more on this topic on our blog here!
Step 2: Day-to-Day Usage
Once the user is onboarded, the real work begins. Day-to-day experiences must be seamless—users won’t applaud every successful payment, but they will certainly sound the alarm on social media over failures. Ensuring that users can easily navigate your platform, access transaction histories, and explore product offerings is crucial, all while delivering a personalized experience that fits their needs.
AI agents excel in personalization. They can pull up the user's transaction/ purchase history within seconds and engage in deeply contextual conversations as if they’ve always been the user's personal assistant through the spending journey. By analyzing spending patterns, AI can identify potential savings opportunities and recommend financial products tailored to users' habits. Instead of navigating complex interfaces, users can simply ask the AI for specific information—like their transaction history or account balance—making interactions more intuitive and engaging.
Example: Imagine an AI-driven search bar that has learned a user’s preferences. It will offer up exactly what the user needs without endless searching through menus.
Step 3: Making Transactions and Payments
When it comes to payments, there’s no room for error. Few things frustrate users more than seeing their hard-earned money stuck in limbo due to a failed transaction. Payment failures often lead to long resolution times, which cause anxiety and a lack of trust in the platform.
AI agents can step in immediately. They can validate payment statuses in real-time, retry failed transactions, and offer users clear next steps for resolution. AI can even detect issues before they arise—like insufficient funds or expired payment methods—and notify users proactively to prevent failed transactions from happening in the first place.
Example: If a payment fails due to insufficient funds, an AI agent can instantly notify the user, offer to retry at a later time when funds are available, or suggest alternative payment methods.
💡In fact at Fini we have designed a product feature called Flows to drive highly contextual conversations while handling sensitive information. Our goal was 100% accuracy for the critical business processes like payment failures, leaving nothing to second chances.
The high-stakes instances are routed through predefined process flows, managing necessary inputs from the system backends and end-user then routing them through set personalized channels, ensuring they are managed with the utmost care and precision. This enabled one of client DistroKid to handle sensitive topics such as payment withdrawal requests or time sensitive metadata edit requests with increased speed and accuracy.
We have captures this in detail in our blog here
Step 4: Customer Support and Problem Resolution
They say the chain is only as strong as the weakest link and more often than not customer support is the weakest link in many businesses. Users don’t want to endure long wait times for support, nor do they want to repeat their issues multiple times. This is a major cause of drop-offs and frustration.
AI agents offer a transformative solution by providing 24/7 support that can handle a wide variety of queries, significantly reducing wait times. They retain context throughout conversations, meaning users won’t have to repeat themselves. AI agents remember past interactions, payment history, and the specific nature of the problem, ensuring that issues are resolved quickly and smoothly.
✨ In fact with Fini you do this in customers' native languages to ensure excellent customer satisfaction. According to Common Sense Advisory, 76% of customers find comfort to operate products and services in their native language. Moreover, 40% of consumers feel urged to not engage with a web page/ agent in other languages, highlighting the importance of multilingual support.
Step 5: Fraud Prevention and Security
Security is a paramount concern for fintech users. The Fintech Effect Report revealed that 62% of consumers expect AI to play a key role in fraud detection and prevention. As augmented reality blurs the line between real and virtual threats, users need assurance that their accounts are safe, especially during larger transactions.
AI agents are adept at spotting potential fraud. By continuously monitoring activity in real-time, they can detect unusual patterns, flag suspicious transactions, and take immediate protective measures like freezing an account or blocking a transaction.
Example: AI agents can notify users the moment suspicious activity is detected, guiding them through steps to secure their account and verify transactions.
Conclusion: AI Agents as the Key to Retaining Fintech Users
By strategically integrating AI agents at key stages of the customer journey, fintech companies can significantly enhance user retention. From providing personalized financial advice and resolving payment failures in real time to offering round-the-clock support, AI-driven solutions improve user experience by addressing pain points quickly, effectively, and empathetically. For fintech companies, AI agents are more than just a tool for efficiency—they are a vital strategy for building long-term customer loyalty in an increasingly competitive market.
Important Note: Security and Compliance
Handling financial data requires strict adherence to security and compliance standards. It is crucial to select your AI partner carefully. For more information on choosing the right AI partner, refer to our blog.
Integration Made Easy
Integrating an AI agent into your support ecosystem is straightforward. We wanted to list down step-by-step how easy it is to integrate an AI agent in your support ecosystem. We are explaining this for Zendesk but feel free to block a 30 mins demo with us to learn about your specific tools. Trust me this 30 min is nothing but an investment in saving countless hours later 🙂
Implementing AI in your payment handling flows not only streamlines operations but also meets the growing expectations of tech-savvy consumers for quick and efficient service. For more details on how AI can transform financial services, get in touch with us with the below mentioned options!!
Onboarding and Activation
1. How do AI agents improve onboarding for fintech users?
AI agents break down complex onboarding steps into simple tasks, guide users in real-time, validate documents, and autofill forms using contextual data. This reduces friction and drop-offs, leading to a faster and more personalized signup experience.
2. Can AI assist users with KYC verification in real-time?
Yes, AI agents can guide users through Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, automatically detect and flag issues in uploaded documents, and confirm user identity instantly by accessing backend verification APIs.
3. What are the key onboarding metrics AI can improve in fintech apps?
AI can boost onboarding completion rates, reduce time to verify, and lower abandonment by assisting users contextually. Metrics like time-to-first-transaction and onboarding funnel conversion also improve with AI assistance.
4. How does contextual guidance from AI compare to static onboarding flows?
Unlike static forms, AI agents offer adaptive, two-way guidance. They can clarify questions, pre-fill known data, and react to user confusion—just like a helpful human agent, but instantly and at scale.
5. Is AI onboarding secure enough for sensitive fintech applications?
Yes, when implemented with proper compliance protocols like SOC2, GDPR, and secure APIs, AI onboarding workflows remain secure and audit-compliant while offering great UX.
Day-to-Day Engagement
6. How does AI personalize the day-to-day fintech experience?
AI agents can analyze transaction history, user preferences, and past interactions to deliver tailored recommendations, proactive tips, and financial insights in natural language.
7. What types of queries can AI agents handle after onboarding?
Users often ask about balances, payment histories, savings insights, subscriptions, card limits, and transfer statuses—all of which AI agents can resolve in real time using backend integrations.
8. Can AI help reduce app navigation friction?
Yes, users can skip complex menus and simply ask the AI questions like “What’s my last transaction?” or “When is my EMI due?” turning your fintech app into a conversational interface.
9. How can AI nudge users toward better financial habits?
AI can recognize spending patterns and proactively suggest savings goals, spending caps, or low-interest alternatives, encouraging healthy financial behavior without being intrusive.
10. What kind of tone and personality should fintech AI agents have?
They should be professional yet approachable, adapting tone based on user context (e.g., cheerful for savings milestones, calm during payment issues). Fini allows tone customization via prompts.
Payments and Transactions
11. How do AI agents resolve payment failures in fintech platforms?
AI agents detect failures instantly, check payment statuses, suggest retries, and inform users of next steps—all while maintaining empathy, especially during high-stress transactions.
12. Can AI retry failed transactions intelligently?
Yes, AI can queue retries around salary credit times or offer alternative payment methods. Smart retry strategies significantly increase payment recovery rates.
13. What’s Fini’s Flow feature, and how does it help during failed payments?
Fini’s Flow lets you define step-by-step, brand-safe flows for high-stakes issues like failed transactions. It ensures 100% accurate, context-aware handling with backend validations and clear resolution paths.
14. How does AI handle real-time payment status tracking?
AI agents fetch transaction details (amount, time, method, status) in real time and relay this info to the user without needing agent intervention.
15. What’s the impact of AI on payment failure-related churn?
By resolving payment issues swiftly and empathetically, AI reduces user anxiety and prevents churn. Timely support increases trust in your platform’s reliability.
Support and Retention
16. Can AI fully replace human support in fintech?
AI handles 70–90% of routine queries autonomously, like balance checks, card activation, and payment status. For edge cases or compliance-bound queries, AI escalates to humans with full context.
17. How does AI reduce wait times for customer support?
AI agents are always-on and can instantly respond to thousands of users concurrently, eliminating queues and reducing average resolution time from hours to seconds.
18. What role does multilingual support play in retention?
Serving users in their native language builds trust. Fini supports over 100 languages, helping fintechs increase inclusivity and reduce friction for global users.
19. What happens when an AI agent doesn’t know the answer?
Good systems like Fini escalate gracefully with fallback messages, share interim timelines, and summarize the situation before transferring to a human—preserving trust and continuity.
20. What metrics show improved support efficiency with AI?
Look for increased first contact resolution (FCR), lower average response time (ART), higher CSAT scores, reduced cost per ticket, and improved agent satisfaction from fewer repetitive tasks.
Security and Fraud
21. How does AI help detect fraudulent transactions?
AI agents monitor transaction patterns in real-time, flag anomalies, and can trigger actions like locking accounts or notifying users instantly—sometimes even before the user notices.
22. Can AI explain fraud alerts clearly to users?
Yes, instead of vague SMS alerts, AI agents can tell users exactly what was flagged, ask clarifying questions, and guide them through next steps in a conversational way.
23. How do AI agents collaborate with backend fraud systems?
They can fetch risk scores or suspicious patterns via APIs and explain them in human-readable terms, bridging technical systems and user comprehension.
24. Is AI fast enough to act during real-time fraud?
Yes, AI can take milliseconds to analyze and act, reducing the window for fraud damage. It can auto-notify, lock accounts, or ask users to verify high-risk transactions.
25. How does AI improve security without hurting UX?
By automating checks in the background, prompting verification only when needed, and reducing false positives, AI improves safety and experience simultaneously.
Personalization and Loyalty
26. How does AI help fintechs offer hyper-personalized experiences?
AI uses user behavior, transaction data, and lifecycle stage to tailor conversations, surface relevant offers, and even suggest optimal times to interact.
27. Can AI recommend the right financial product at the right time?
Absolutely. Based on user profiles, usage trends, and goals, AI can suggest products like savings accounts, credit cards, or investment options just-in-time.
28. How does contextual memory in AI improve retention?
When AI remembers what users asked previously, what problems they faced, and how they resolved it, the experience feels cohesive and builds long-term loyalty.
29. Can AI detect silent churn?
Yes, AI can monitor disengagement signals (like reduced logins, stalled onboarding, ignored alerts) and trigger re-engagement campaigns or conversations before the user drops off.
30. What role does proactive engagement play in retention?
AI can check in with users before problems arise—“Your card is expiring soon,” “Want to retry that failed payment?”—reducing churn risk and improving satisfaction.
Implementation and Best Practices
31. How long does it take to deploy AI agents in a fintech app?
With platforms like Fini, deployment takes days—not months. No-code options mean you can launch your AI support across channels like chat, email, and app with minimal engineering.
32. What data does the AI need to get started?
It needs access to your support content (FAQs, help docs), conversation history, and optionally, transaction metadata via APIs to personalize responses.
33. Can I control how the AI responds?
Yes, Fini includes a Prompt Configurator where you define tone, escalation logic, instructions per channel, and even custom behaviors during outages or sensitive cases.
34. Is AI useful for both small and large fintech teams?
Absolutely. Startups benefit from 24/7 support without hiring, while large teams gain from reduced ticket load, agent assist, and automation at scale.
35. What are the compliance considerations in using AI for fintech?
Make sure your AI platform is SOC2, GDPR, and ISO 27001 compliant. Also, implement input/output guardrails to prevent data leakage and unauthorized actions.
ROI and Long-Term Value
36. What’s the ROI of implementing AI support agents in fintech?
Fintechs typically see 30–60% reduction in support costs, 20–40% faster resolution times, and measurable improvements in retention and NPS within 60–90 days of launch.
37. How does AI impact CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)?
By improving onboarding and increasing referral-based growth from happy customers, AI indirectly reduces CAC by boosting LTV/CAC ratios.
38. What are real-world examples of AI-driven fintech retention?
Klarna's AI agent now handles two-thirds of their support volume, improving satisfaction by 47%. DistroKid used Fini Flows to manage time-sensitive payment cases with 95%+ accuracy.
39. How does AI free up your human team?
AI handles repetitive queries, categorizes tickets, and surfaces high-priority cases—letting human agents focus on sensitive, strategic, or revenue-driving support.
40. Why should fintech companies adopt AI now, not later?
As user expectations rise and fintech competition grows, AI is no longer optional. It offers a scalable, cost-effective way to meet demands, retain users, and future-proof operations.
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