Playbook, fintech app
The one answer that has to be a quotation rather than a sentence
This question arrives in ordinary words and has an extraordinary answer, which is that the assistant should not compose one. Whatever arrangement applies to customer funds, the statement describing it was written carefully by people whose job was to get every clause right, and any paraphrase of it is a different statement. The correct handling is narrow, unusual and slightly unsatisfying: quote the published wording, point at where it lives, and stop.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for insurance and coverage holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The answer is a piece of drafted text rather than a fact to be relayed, which makes summarising it the failure mode rather than a helpful convenience.
- Customers use protection words interchangeably for arrangements that are not the same thing, and correcting them requires the assistant to characterise which one applies, which is exactly what it must not do.
- Where the account or the card sits with another firm, the arrangement may belong to that entity rather than to the app, so the statement has to be read as published rather than assumed to be about the company whose name is on the screen.
- The question is usually asked at a decision point, by somebody about to move a large amount, so an over confident answer influences a decision about their money and an evasive one denies them a document they are entitled to.
How it arrives
- is my money protected if you go out of business
- are you covered like a normal bank account
- what happens to my balance if the company fails
- is there a limit on how much is protected
- where is the protection statement on your site
- is my money held separately from the company's own money
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The protection statement, indexed exactly as published | The full wording, on its own page, unedited. Not a summary of it, not a version rewritten for the help centre, and not a paragraph buried inside a longer marketing page where a retrieval system will find half of it. |
|---|---|
| Which entity the arrangement belongs to | The firm that actually holds the funds and whose arrangement is being described. Where that differs from the brand on the app, saying so is part of the answer, because a customer checking a register needs the right name. |
| The distinction between the arrangements you actually have | If more than one applies to different products or balances, publish which applies to which. A customer who reads one statement and applies it to the wrong balance has been misled by a document rather than by a person. |
| The route for a question the statement does not answer | Who to contact, and how long they take. This is the only part of the answer the assistant may compose, and it should be present in the same reply as the quotation. |
The reply
This is one I will quote rather than explain, because the wording is deliberate and a summary of it would be a different statement. Our published position on how customer funds are held and what protection applies is set out in full on the protection page, along with which entity the arrangement sits with [1]. I am not going to characterise what that means for you or compare it to any other kind of account. If the statement does not answer your question, leave your name and an email and it will go to the team who can answer it properly [2].
Saying out loud that it is quoting rather than explaining is unusual, and it is the honest description of what is happening, which reads as care rather than evasion. Refusing the comparison is deliberate, since comparing yourself to another kind of account is the single most misleading sentence available here. The handover sits in the same reply so the refusal is not a dead end.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any question the published statement does not answer directly, any request to compare the arrangement with another kind of account, and anybody asking whether a specific balance is covered.
I can point you at the published statement but I will not interpret it or apply it to an amount, because that needs somebody who can answer for it. Leave your name and an email with what you want to know, and it will go to the team.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never paraphrase, shorten or explain the protection statement in your own words.
- Never name a protection scheme, a limit or a guarantee that your own published statement does not name.
- Never compare the arrangement to a bank account, a savings account, or any other product.
- Never tell anybody their money is safe, or that they have nothing to worry about.
Questions
- This makes the assistant sound stiff. Is that not a problem?
- It is the one page where stiffness is correct. Everywhere else it should sound like a person who knows the answer. Here the answer is a document, the wording was fought over, and a friendlier version of it is a misstatement with your name on it.
- Can it tell somebody whether a particular balance is covered?
- No, twice over. It cannot see any balance, and applying a protection statement to a specific amount is an interpretation rather than a quotation. Both halves belong to a person, and saying so plainly beats a careful sounding answer that is wrong.
- Our statement is inside our terms. Is that enough?
- No. A retrieval system reaching into a long terms document will find a fragment, and a fragment of this paragraph is exactly what you cannot afford to have quoted. Put the statement on its own page and index that page.
Keep reading
- Everything for a fintech appFees, limits and identity checks are safe ground. Balances, transactions and anything reading as a personal recommendation are not.
- Handling insurance and coverage in generalWhether something is covered turns on the policy wording, so the assistant explains process and never adjudicates. Claims have to reach a person fast.
- 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.
- 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.
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.