Edify, who has been a Microsoft Speech Partner for the past year, said it is the first member to receive formal certification for a financial services packaged application. The program is expected to be available in the second quarter timeframe.
According to the company, Edify Voice Banking aims to eliminate concerns over application functionality and compatibility issues for retail banks and ensure that the Edify applications operate across platforms. It includes account information and history, stop pay, change PIN, funds transfer and business enterprise features, such as detail reporting and monitoring.
The new product has been seen as a significant enhancement to telephone banking, as it enables bank customers to make transactions by speaking to a virtual attendant, without having to traverse complex touch-tone menus. It is hoped that this will allow banks to improve customer service and lower costs by reducing call times and increasing automation.
Packaged applications are the breakthrough companies need to start using speech in a big way, said Marie Jackson, vice president of marketing and alliances for Edify. Speech will cut deployment time and cost and provide their customers with an easy way to access their accounts in a time efficient manner.
