By Sreeni Unnamatla (pictured), Executive Vice President Asia Pacific and Japan, Kore.ai
The Australians financial services landscape has undergone significant transformation over the past two decades. Once almost wholly dominated by the four big banks, it’s become far more fragmented – and competitive – than before.
Today, we see traditional institutions going head-to-head with a growing range of challengers, from freshly minted fintech start-ups to second and third tier providers that are joining forces to gain economies of scale and secure a larger share of the market.
Against this backdrop, profitable growth is far from guaranteed. Providers across the board are having to pull out all the stops – investing in product development, people and digital technologies that enable them to operate more efficiently while delivering consistently excellent experiences to increasingly demanding customers.
Agentic AI can aid in that effort. These autonomous systems, with exponentially greater capability than traditional chatbots, can plan and execute multi-stage tasks with minimal human oversight. Globally, forward-looking financial services providers are already putting them to work across a growing range of business applications.
Here are some compelling use cases that could help your institution gain an edge in the upcoming financial year.
Credit card dispute resolution
While the extraordinary convenience of online shopping is impossible to dispute, it’s also driven a surge in payment card fraud. ABS data shows one in 10 Australians experienced it in 2024-25, with the collective value of fraudulent transactions reaching $854 million, according to the Australian Payments Network. More than 2.7 million transactions contributed to that total, each requiring investigation and resolution by the relevant card issuer.
Agentic AI can significantly accelerate that resolution time, by gathering transaction details across multiple systems and enabling institutions to provide customers with clarity within minutes, rather than hours and days.
Personalised wealth advisory and portfolio management
Growing demand for retirement planning and increasing intergenerational wealth transfer is making wealth advisory and portfolio management an attractive growth opportunity for Australian institutions. Delivering a high standard of service to high-net-worth clients can, however, be a resource intensive – read expensive – exercise.
Agentic AI can help reduce that burden by taking care of non-advisory operational tasks, such as onboarding and portfolio set up, and freeing skilled advisers to concentrate on client liaison and high value advice.
24/7 service and support
In the digital era, branch banking hours no longer apply. Australians now expect to engage with their banks around the clock and not only emergencies, such as a lost or stolen credit card, either. They want high quality service on their time and terms, and if it’s not forthcoming, they may well start exploring other alternatives.
Unlike the limited and often unhelpful sessions offered by legacy chatbots, agentic AI powered systems can deliver meaningful information and support across a wide range of banking needs, 24/7. Investing in this capability is a highly cost-effective way to boost contact centre capacity and deliver satisfactory responses and resolutions to more customers and prospects, more often.
Identify fraud detection and investigation
Identity fraud can be financially devastating for victims and, here in Australia, it’s on the rise. More than 200,000 Australians experienced it in 2024-25, according to the ABS. As major data breaches exposing large volumes of sensitive personal information continue to occur, that figure may well increase in the coming financial years.
Meanwhile, financial services providers are coming under increasing pressure to detect and investigate incidents quickly. Agentic AI can be a powerful aide for fraud and compliance teams, especially those relying on manual processes. Using it to flag suspicious activity patterns and identify false positives can enable institutions to better protect their customers – and their own reputations as secure financial partners.
Banking on a stronger future in FY2027 and beyond
Strategic use of technology has long been a competitive differentiator in the financial services sector. Agentic AI ups the stakes, giving providers that adopt it smartly and swiftly an extraordinary advantage over those that continue to rely on legacy platforms and processes.
If setting your institution up for long term, profitable growth is a priority, this is an enabling technology that should be embedded across every area of operations.
