Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has updated its mobile banking app to enable Siri, Apple Inc.’s voice-activated personal assistant, to carry out bill payments for personal banking clients on iPhones and iPads.
The firm has also expanded its mobile capabilities by introducing the ability to make Interac e-Transfer payments within Apple’s iMessage platform.
These changes build on previous mobile enhancements that include last year’s launch of free person-to-person money transfer services for chequing account clients and Siri-activated money transfers, which were made available in March.
“Our clients are avid users of Interac e-Transfer payments, and embraced our launch of money transfers using Siri earlier this year,” says Sean Amato-Gauci, executive vice president of cards, payments and banking with RBC, in a statement. “By giving clients the ability to seamlessly and conveniently bank using voice commands, we’re delivering simple and innovative solutions.”
Paying bills is as easy as prompting Siri with a voice command, the firm explains in a news release. After Siri confirms the payee’s name, the mobile app will debit the customer’s account to make the payment. For security, RBC relies on the Touch ID fingerprint recognition technology available on Apple’s devices.
Interac e-transfer payments available within iMessage are designed to be just as efficient. Customers simply type the amount of money they wish to send to someone and use TouchID to authenticate the transfer.
“We’re committed to providing clients with exceptional experiences when, how and where it’s most convenient for them,” Amato-Gauci says, “including exploring ways to integrate into social networks and digital platforms that are essential to their everyday lives.”
RBC’s attention to improving its mobile capabilities appears to be paying off. The bank recently received the highest customer satisfaction rating among Canadian mobile banking apps in J.D. Power’s 2017 Canadian Banking Mobile App Satisfaction Study.
The bank also reports that the number of its clients who are active mobile users have increased by more than 20% over the past year.
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