This thesis explores the opportunities and challenges by using voice assistants to perform tasks related to online banking. This study has taken place in cooperation with Danske Bank and is guided by the following problem statement:

How can interaction with a voice assistant improve the digital banking experience?

With a pragmatic theory of science approach, we have applied the design thinking-process model by Stanford Design School to conceptually develop and evaluate ideas to investigate whether voice assistants can improve the user experience in a banking context. Qualitative interviews have been made with customers of Danske Bank and have been analyzed for the purpose of creating guidelines for developing concepts based on user needs. To generate a creative process with the purpose of exploiting the topic of the context the methods Mind Mapping and Brainstorming has been applied. This process resulted in five concept proposals.

The concepts were explored by integrating them into scenarios where the purpose of the concepts and the user needs were explained. In addition to that, low-fidelity sketches were made in the shape of storyboards. Thereafter the concepts were evaluated by presenting the scenarios while showing the storyboards to users from the target group. The users were asked to comment on the concepts by relating them to their own everyday lives.
The investigation of the user needs showed that the users often are in connection with the products of their banks to carry out every day related banking actions. They use their mobile bank to get an overview of their finances, to transfer money and to pay bills.

The evaluation of the scenarios where voice assistants were integrated showed opportunities and challenges. The voice assistant is not suitable for giving the users an overview of their accounts and their transactions. To get an overview is a visual medium more suitable. The users also feel insecure because they doubt the safety of using their voice as a biometric tool to get access to their accounts. Apart from that, the users see an opportunity to use the voice assistant when they are in their private homes because the voice assistant can make it more efficient to do banking actions. On the other hand, the users are very dismissive towards using the voice assistant in a public space, because interacting verbally with their phone feels unnatural. Adding to this there is the problem with the personal data, which they need to say out loud.

At the present time, users have had doubtful experiences with voice assistants because the technology is experienced as poor. That is why the users are skeptic towards the technology. To make voice assistants a successful banking experience in the future a communication task must be carried out to explain to theusers that voice assistants are safe, easy and quick to use. In addition to that users have to be taught what a voice assistant is capable of and how to talk to it.