UBank launches Mia, the digital human home loan assistant

Would you get a home loan from a robot mortgage broker? You may soon get your chance to find out, thanks to the new ‘digital human’ home loan assistant that’s been introduced by UBank and FaceMe.

The assistant, named Mia (‘My Interactive Agent’), is to provide similar Artificial Intelligence (AI) functionality to online chatbots and virtual assistants in the style of Siri and Alexa, while adding a digital face to the online home loan application experience.

UBank customers will be able to speak directly to Mia on their computer or smartphone and get answers to more than 300 of the most common home loan application questions, such as “what’s a variable rate?” or “what classifies as an expense?”.

Mia’s persona has been developed to provide customer-friendly service – she doesn’t use bank jargon, but does use gifs and animations as part of her “cheeky” personality.

Mia is set to complement UBank’s AI-enabled home loan chatbot, RoboChat, as well as Live Chat with UBank’s advisors. According to UBank, RoboChat has answered more than 50,000 questions since its 2017 launch, at a rate roughly 86 questions per day.

UBank CEO, Lee Hatton, said that Mia gives customers a whole new way to interact with their home loan application, and challenges the perception of a digital bank.

“We want to continue attracting customers but maintaining the same number of team members to support this ever-growing customer base. That means we need to leverage key technologies like AI to tackle the typical questions customers ask, so we can free up our team to address the unique situations our customers need more support with, every day.”

FaceMe CEO, Danny Tomsett, said that the vision for this project was to create more meaningful and valuable experiences for UBank customers, adding that “Mia offers an emotionally connected experience for servicing customers making an exciting and important life decision.”

Compare home loans in Australia