Resona Bank, Saitama Resona launch AI TV counter, target 15-min service

The new service builds on an existing TV counter format, in which a remote operator talks with the customer while handling procedures. What is new is the AI layer sitting alongside that conversation: it organizes the items needed for guidance and procedures and retrieves information, so the customer can confirm on-screen content instead of writing on paper. Resona frames the value as combining an operator's judgment and service manner with AI's processing capacity, which it says allows fast and flexible handling even for complex procedures.

The stated payoff is time. Procedures that took about 30 minutes on the previous TV counter are targeted to fall to about 15 minutes, and the group says the time freed up will go toward more consultation and proposals for each customer's various concerns. That framing suggests the banks see the technology less as a way to remove staff and more as a way to redirect staff toward advisory work.

The wider plan runs through Resona's financial digital platform, operated via its consolidated subsidiary FinBASE, which connects the group and innovative technology companies with client companies. Using know-how from this service, the group aims to extend the model to regional financial institutions, general businesses that handle varied procedures at counters, and local governments. Whether that spread happens hinges on how well the AI-and-operator combination holds up in settings beyond banking, and on the pace of adding branches at the two banks.