UAE banking robot learns Arabic to help more customers

Emirates NBD’s Pepper, the artificial intelligence (AI) powered humanoid robot, has learnt to speak Arabic as it seeks to help more of the bank's customers.

The robot, brought to the UAE by Emirates NBD last year, has been widely popular and will now also cater to the bank’s Arabic-speaking customers, a statement said.

The bilingual Pepper will continue to interact with customers at the bank’s Jumeirah Emirates Towers and Dubai Mall branches and provide assistance with issuing branch queueing tokens, presenting information about products and services in an engaging manner and obtaining customer feedback through a happiness meter.

“Pepper has been extremely popular with customers and well received at our branches and promotional events,” said Suvo Sarkar, senior executive vice president & group head - Retail Banking & Wealth Management, Emirates NBD.

“As a bank that has been at the forefront of digitisation and in bringing innovations to the region, we are pleased to offer our customers the opportunity to interact with Pepper in the language of their choice. Pepper brings in a modern and contemporary aspect to banking, complementing our multi-channel yet personalised banking proposition.”

Pepper made his first appearance in 2016 at Emirates NBD’s futuristic banking space in the Jumeirah Emirates Towers branch.

The bank also recently announced a planned investment of AED1 billion over the next three years to carry out a digital transformation program.