Agros Bank: AB chat

Main article: Mobile applications

2024: Release of fintech product based on mobile application

On May 21, 2024, Agros Bank announced the release of its first fintech product based on the mobile application - AB chat. AB chat is not just a banking application with chat, but a full-fledged chat application, where all the tasks of entrepreneurs are solved in the chat format. The target audience of the AB chat is micro and small business entities.

source = Agros Bank

According to the company, at the first stage, individual entrepreneurs will be able to use the services of AB chat, and later legal entities will be connected. Both existing customers of Agros Bank and new counterparties can become users of AB chat: an application for opening a current account is drawn up from the fintech application.

The UX design of the AB chat mobile application was developed by Alexander Urban, whose portfolio includes the creation and rethinking of user interfaces for the largest Russian bank.

When developing the UX/UI application, we relied both on the needs of customers identified on in-depth interviews and on the already familiar chat mechanics. The resulting alloy closes the daily tasks of the individual entrepreneur. In the future, we plan to continue to develop the product, listening to voice to the client and maximizing the positive experience of users. clarifies Yuri Pichugin, product director of AB chat

Since the concept of AB chat initially laid down a phased deployment of services and scaling, a flexible service-oriented architecture was chosen for the mobile application. By dividing the application into stand-alone microservice components, developers have the ability to deploy and support interfaces almost independently of each other. Created with attention to current trends in the development and marketing of fintech products, the application's technical stack is compatible with Big Data and AI. By using lightweight protocols for communication between microservices, data exchange is fast. In addition, the microservice architecture optimizes the fault tolerance of the application, which is so important for banking services: independent connections between modules isolate sensitive calculation operations from the communication functions of the application.

With the advent of additional features of AB chat, the front end of the installed application changes automatically, without the need to update through the store and without reinstalling.

Thanks to Backend-Driven UI technology, the product will be updated independently and provide new features to the user in a short time. noted Amir Sharafullin, product-owner AB chat

The cross-platform free mobile application AB chat will be available in the App Store, Google Play, Huawei AppGallery, RuStore, NashStore.

The communication strategy of the Agros Bank project is united by a creative framework, and the main role is given to a raccoon - a mascot, which introduces the young target audience to the capabilities of the AB chat service.

The main page of the mobile application is a list of chats with the client's counterparties, as well as with the AB chat itself (support) and the EN, where the client will receive reminders about the reporting dates and will be able to quickly send the payment to his unified tax account. After choosing the desired topic, you can go to interaction with the counterparty. At the same time, the payment order is also filled out in the format of an intuitive chat, without complex forms.

Onboarding customers is also solved in a friendly and intuitive chat format. A mobile phone number is enough to register in the application, and step-by-step filling of data with chat prompts will help with IP binding.

source = Agros Bank

Particular attention was paid to aspects of cybersecurity. Chat provides all banking services to AB in digital form. However, if the client needs a personal visit to the bank, he will have access to a dedicated service in the AB chat corner in any of the 21 branches of the 14 cities where Agros Bank operates. If you need a voice call between the bank and the client, then it is carried out only inside the mobile application: the external telephone line is not used by the AB chat staff.