With artificial intelligence, Bunq internet bank tries to give its customers more insight into their financial affairs. The bank launched its own chatbot this week, called Finn, where customers can ask questions about their financial problems. Finn’s answers are sometimes a bit over the top, seasoned tech entrepreneur and Bunq customer Sanne Kanis.

The chatbot answers questions like: ‘How much money do I spend on coffee?’ or ‘How much money did I spend last Saturday in a cafe in Amsterdam?’, but can also answer follow-up questions such as: ‘When should I retire? ? ?’ Kanis discovered.

And at that point he still saw some risks. He asked Finn himself the retirement question and was told that ‘at some point he would have to invest 20 per cent per month’, he said on the BNR Nexus podcast.

Also read | Bunq online bank returns to the UK

When asked how much money he should make by the age of 30, the bot indicates that you should have savings of around 138,000 euros at that time. “That’s an arbitrary assumption,” Kanis said. ‘I think that’s also the danger, and that’s also the risk of AI.’

Data security

Bunq founder and CEO Ali Niknam emphasized that the function is still in beta stage so it may still provide wrong or inaccurate answers. ‘But these are the answers to all kinds of questions that normal people face every day. So we can answer it now.’

Also read | Savings interest rates are increasing rapidly: you get the biggest profits from these banks

For its functionality, Finn partly uses existing AI language models, such as GPT and Google’s Gemini, to save costs and energy. That doesn’t mean that the sensitive financial data that users sometimes share with Finn also ends up with those external companies, Niknam said.

‘Data security is number one. We have done this by storing all user data in Europe. This offers security through GDPR (GDPR law, ed.).’ Moreover, all data is personal, added Nikman. ‘That database of yours, there’s nothing else you can add to it. Bunq itself uses the data to improve its own chatbot, the CEO said. ‘But it’s not sent to Gemini or ChatGPT.’

Regulatory pressures limit innovation

Bunq introduced chatbots because users needed them, Niknam said. He is troubled by the regulatory burden that sometimes limits innovative applications like this. “There are many things that can be gained from innovation. And yes: with innovation comes new risks, and yes: someday things will definitely get bad. But it also brings a lot of beauty.’

He sees that in the United States, for example, there is more that can be done in this area. “We have become very careful recently. We have regulated everything so tightly that we do not receive all the benefits of new technology, or only some of them.’

Conflict

Therefore, online banks are sometimes not afraid to seek conflict with supervisors. For example, the bank went to court twice to challenge money laundering fines imposed by De Nederlandsche Bank. This includes a conflict with DNB over Bunq’s use of artificial intelligence in their money laundering checks.

Also read | Bunq has controlled and received an investment of 44.5 million

Both times the fines were not waived, but were reduced significantly, because the judge decided that Bunq had less culpability than DNB found. ‘We always side with users on this,’ says Niknam. “If we have any judgment about technology, it is that we side with users, when we feel regulators are not acting in users’ best interests.