Integration presents biggest AI challenge for payments, survey finds

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of finance professionals in the business payments and banking sector believe the shift to AI is here, according to a survey recently released by Bottomline Technologies, a provider of technology that supports business payments. The survey was conducted at the AFP 2019 Conference.

When questioned about the advantages that come with AI technology, over four out of every ten survey respondents (41%) believe that greater efficiency is the biggest benefit of AI for banking and payments; followed by 37.5% who stated automating manual processes and 20% who believe it will reduce payments fraud.

Nearly half of respondents (45%) noted that integration into existing technology is their biggest challenge when it comes to greater adoption of AI in banking and payments. Additionally, as real-time payments (RTP) gain traction, 40% of survey respondents feel that accounting and ERP integration is their primary concern with adoption of corporate RTP in the US.

Security remains a top concern in the industry. Looking ahead to 2020, more than one-third of survey respondents (37%) anticipate seeing a greater emphasis on combatting payments fraud and financial crimes, closely followed by increased adoption of AI and machine learning technology (35%).

Methodology

Bottomline Technologies polled a select group of payments and banking professionals on their views of artificial intelligence, real-time-payments and industry trends in business payments and banking at the 2019 AFP Conference in Boston from October 21-23, 2019. A total of 160 individuals were polled.