By business type
Where an assistant helps a regulated financial product and where it must stop
A financial product has a line running through its support queue that does not exist anywhere else in software. On one side is information: what a fee is, how long a transfer takes, which documents verification accepts. On the other is advice, which in most jurisdictions is a regulated activity with authorisation attached to it. An assistant answering in your firm's name stands on the same side of that line as your website does, and its wording has to know it.
What people actually type
Not the questions on your FAQ page. These are the phrasings that arrive in a chat window, lowercase and unpunctuated, and the material has to answer them in those words rather than in yours.
- why is my account locked
- how long does verification usually take
- what documents do you accept for id
- what do you charge for an international transfer
- what is the daily transfer limit
- i think someone has used my card
- how do i close my account
- when will my transfer arrive
- is my money protected if you go under
- why was my payment declined
- which countries can i send money to
- should i move my savings into this
What to feed it
In rough order of how much work each one takes off the front desk. Every one of these is a document you almost certainly already have.
| The fee schedule and the limits table | Every fee, every threshold, every daily and monthly limit, and the conversion margin rule if you handle more than one currency. These are fixed published terms rather than facts about an individual, which makes them the largest block of safely answerable volume on the site. |
|---|---|
| Identity verification requirements | Which documents are accepted, what a proof of address has to show, what happens when a check does not pass, and how to resubmit. Identity checks are required of regulated firms under anti money laundering rules in most markets, they generate enormous question volume, and the requirements themselves are entirely publishable. |
| The fraud and unauthorised transaction route, with a telephone number in it | Not a contact page, the specific route: the number to ring, what to do first, how to freeze a card in the app. This is the one piece of material where the answer is a phone number, and the assistant's whole job is to produce it in the first reply. |
| Payment timings and cut off times | When a transfer sent at four in the afternoon actually lands, what a weekend does to it, which corridors are slower, and why a payment can be held for checks. Timing questions are high volume, entirely answerable from published terms, and currently answered by staff reading the same page. |
| Eligibility, coverage and account types | Who can open an account, which countries and currencies you support, minimum age, residency conditions, and what each account type actually does. These questions arrive before signup and stop it dead when they go unanswered. |
| Terms, protection statements and the complaints procedure | Your terms of service, any deposit protection or safeguarding statement exactly as your compliance team worded it, and the complaints process with its published timescales. Quote this material rather than paraphrasing it. The wording of a protection statement is deliberate, and a paraphrase of it is a misstatement. |
What has to reach a person
Fraud, a lost card, or anything the customer calls unauthorised
This needs the fastest human route you have, and a form is not it. Somebody watching money leave an account needs a telephone number in the first reply, not a promise that the team will be in touch. Put the number in the refusal wording itself rather than trusting the assistant to compose it.
There is a regulatory dimension too. In many markets how quickly a customer notifies the firm affects liability for an unauthorised transaction, which is another reason the reply that counts is the immediate one.
Anything about a named account, balance or transaction
Why a payment was declined, whether a transfer arrived, why an account is restricted, what a pending charge is. This is simultaneously the largest category on a financial app and the one the assistant is completely unable to handle, because it holds no view of any account and must not appear to.
It can explain the general causes of a decline and what usually resolves them, then hand over. What it cannot do is describe what happened to this person, and the gap between those two things is exactly where the damage lands.
Anything that would read as a recommendation
Should I use this product, is this a good rate for me, would it be better to convert now or wait, should I move my savings across. A personal recommendation about a financial product is regulated activity in most jurisdictions, and it does not stop being one because a piece of software produced it.
The safe behaviour is to describe features and terms factually, never to relate them to the person's circumstances, and to say clearly that it cannot advise. Index product pages written as descriptions and the assistant inherits that discipline. Index pages written as persuasion and it inherits that instead.
Formal complaints
A complaint against a regulated firm usually starts a defined process with published deadlines and, in many markets, an external route if the firm does not resolve it in time. A message containing the word complaint should get the procedure and a handover, and it should be logged rather than quietly absorbed by an assistant that talks the person down.
The wording when it cannot help
This is the message the assistant returns when nothing in the material covers the question. It is written by you rather than generated, which matters here more than anywhere: it is the sentence a stranger reads at the worst moment.
I cannot see your account or any transaction on it, and I cannot give advice about what is right for your situation. If you think a payment was not made by you, please call us straight away on the number above rather than waiting for a reply here. Otherwise I can explain our fees, limits, timings and what verification needs.
It names what it cannot do, gives the route that can, and offers to take a message. A refusal that only apologises leaves the person exactly where they started.
Rules and duties that shape the answer
The information and advice boundary is a legal line, not a matter of tone
The distinction that matters is whether the answer is about the product or about the person. Our transfer fee is a fixed percentage is information. Given what you have described, this account would suit you better is a recommendation, and it stays one however carefully it is hedged.
In practice this means the assistant must never take a customer's description of their own circumstances and produce a suggestion from it, even where the indexed material would support one. That is the specific behaviour to test before launch, because a helpful assistant drifts towards it naturally.
Financial promotion rules cover anything published in the firm's name
Communications about financial products are regulated in most major markets, typically with a requirement that they be fair, clear and not misleading, and often with rules about how prominently risk warnings appear. An assistant answering in your name is a communication in your name.
The practical mitigation is to index only material that has been through your approval process, and to quote it rather than summarise it. A summary that drops the risk warning is a promotion without a risk warning.
Never help somebody get through an identity check
Explaining which documents are accepted is service. Explaining why a particular check did not pass, or what to change so that it passes next time, is a different thing entirely, and the reason firms are deliberately unspecific about failed checks is not customer service laziness.
Keep the indexed material to the published requirements. Anything about a specific verification goes to a person, and the assistant should not speculate about the cause even when the customer is plainly just confused rather than anything else.
Never, whatever the documents say
Out of bounds
- Anything about a specific balance, payment, transfer or account restriction.
- Whether a product, rate or account type suits the person asking.
- Why an identity or fraud check did not pass, or how to pass it next time.
- Whether a disputed transaction will be refunded.
- A prediction about a rate, a market, or the future value of anything.
Playbooks for this trade
One page per recurring question, written for a fintech app rather than in general. Each carries the phrasings, the material that answers them, a reply worth copying, and the line where it has to stop.
- Why an account is restricted is never something a public widget knowsLocks, reviews and frozen cards are the highest anxiety questions on a financial app. Which parts are publishable and which are not.
- The general causes of a decline, without describing this particular oneCut off times, corridor delays and issuer declines are publishable. The specific payment in front of the customer is not.
- Explaining the recovery route without becoming any part of itReset questions look trivial until you notice the asker is unverified. What chat explains, and every step it must never perform.
- A complaint starts a clock, so it has to be recorded rather than absorbedA complaint to a regulated firm follows a defined procedure with deadlines. The assistant quotes it and makes sure the message is logged.
- The one handover in this set where a contact form is the wrong mechanismSomebody watching money leave an account cannot wait on an email reply. Putting the number in the refusal text rather than composing it.
- The file outlasts the account, and that is a duty rather than a choiceClosure does not end a retention duty. Why erasure here is partial by law rather than by preference, and why chat removes nothing.
- A procurement reviewer and a frightened individual, typing the same wordA corporate assessment and a nervous customer arrive in the same box. Neither is served by being answered as the other one.
- A barrier at verification is not an inconvenience, it is a closed accountA photo capture, a liveness step and no published alternative. On a money app an access barrier stops the account working at all.
- The document exists, and the charge on it cannot be discussed hereStatements, fee breakdowns and tax paperwork on a money app. What the schedule explains, and why no charge on an account can be read.
- Publishable to the decimal point, and unquotable in the same breathMargins, thresholds and free allowances can be quoted exactly. A rate at this minute, and what a conversion costs today, cannot.
- Nothing switches off cleanly while money is still pointed at the accountClosure is not cancelling a subscription: a balance to move, arrangements still pointed at it, and a file that survives it.
- The money is coming back from somebody the customer has not written toPending against settled, who actually returns the money, and why a card dispute runs on a process the app does not operate.
- The customer is standing at a checkout, not sitting at a deskWhen payments fail everywhere at once the cause may sit upstream. What to say when the app cannot see the rail or name whose it is.
- Onboarding here is a check somebody else runs, not a configurationAccepted documents, what a proof of address must show, and why a rejected photo is most of onboarding on a regulated money app.
- A frozen screen is support, a frozen payment is something else entirelyCrashes, camera steps and reinstalls are answerable. The moment a payment is involved it stops being a troubleshooting question.
- At two in the morning the only useful answer is a telephone numberWhich routes run around the clock and which do not, and why a quiet weekend is settlement rather than an unanswered message.
- The one answer that has to be a quotation rather than a sentenceSafeguarding and deposit protection are drafted statements, not a topic. Quote the paragraph, never summarise it, never reassure.
- The list is genuine, and joining it is not an applicationRegion by region launches make this a real list rather than a marketing device. What may be said, and why eligibility is never predicted.
Questions
- Is it safe to run an assistant on a regulated financial site?
- It is, provided the material it reads is material you have already approved and the refusal is written for this setting. It answers only from what you index, so if there is no advice in the corpus there is no advice for it to produce. The risk is not invention out of nothing, it is a helpful sounding summary of a page whose careful wording was the point.
- Account questions are most of our volume. Does that make this pointless?
- No, but it changes what success looks like. Account questions have to reach a person regardless, so the value sits in the other half: fees, limits, timings, verification requirements, coverage and eligibility. Those are asked constantly, they are all answerable from published terms, and clearing them leaves your team on the ones that genuinely need an account view.
- How do we make sure fraud reports do not sit in a queue?
- Put the telephone number in the refusal wording itself so it appears in the first reply, ahead of any handover form. The contact form collects a name, an email and a message, which is the right mechanism for an ordinary enquiry and the wrong one for somebody watching money leave their account.
- Can it check whether a customer is verified?
- No. It cannot look anything up in a live system unless you separately connect a data source, and verification status is exactly the sort of thing that belongs behind authentication rather than behind a chat widget on a public page.
Keep reading
- For a SaaS companyOne widget serves prospects, trialists and paying customers. What it can answer about plans and limits, and what has to reach a person.
- For a developer tools companyOn a docs site an assistant competes with search, not a phone line. Version skew, deprecations and error strings decide whether it earns its place.
- For a healthtech appHealth data is a special category and clinical claims carry device rules. What a healthtech assistant answers for patients, and for buyers.
- Every business typeWhat an assistant has to know before it can answer for a trade.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.