CHARLOTTE, N.C.—In a move to strengthen its mobile banking presence, Bank of America has unveiled a "virtual assistant" for smartphones.
The bank said the feature, called Erica, will allow its customers to perform transactions 24 hours a day, seven days a week using their voice, the Charlotte Observer reported.
BofA made the announcement at a recent payments industry conference in Las Vegas. The bank said Erica performs similar to other smartphone virtual assistants, such as iPhone's Siri.
BofA claimed that it is the first major bank to offer a smartphone virtual assistant, and at the conference also introduced other new mobile-banking technology, including upcoming access to a person-to-person payment service meant to compete with Venmo and other money-transfer apps, the Charlotte Observer reported.
Erica, the bank said, is a play on the “America” in its name. The service is expected to be available to bank customers next year, the newspaper said.