Today I had the great pleasure to travel down to Melbourne and present an introductory behavioural economics talk to approximately 100 interested staff members at the National Australia Bank. I covered many of the basic concepts including loss aversion, prospect theory, mental accounting, and the endowment effect. There were some great questions at the end, particularly regarding the ethics of using nudges.
I also had a chance, together with my colleagues at the RMIT Behavioural Business Lab, to sit down and have a discussion with members of the Service Design team. It was interesting to hear how the team was approaching problems and some of the issues that they were grappling with. A memorable example is how adult children are incorporating potential inheritances into their financial planning, if at all.
After my talk I hung around to hear some internal NAB presentations regarding other projects currently being developed. I was particularly impressed with the new NAB app being developed, which has a smart assist feature that will make bank transactions nearly as intuitive as a conversation with a human teller.
I must thank Robert Lee, Principal Designer in the Experiments and Incubation space at NAB Labs, for arranging the event and giving me one of the best introductions that I have ever received. Looking forward to learning more about how NAB will be using behavioural science to bring value to their customers.