Bank to employ two-foot robot cashier which speaks 19 languages

A Japanese bank is to trial using 2ft-tall plastic robots in branches instead of human beings.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is to trial the tiny, talking robot in two branches from April this year.

Depending on how the android performs, more Nao robots could be rolled out to branches later this year.

‘Robots can supplement services by performing tasks that our human workers can’t, such as 24-hour banking and multilingual communication,’ the bank’s Takuma Nomoto said.

‘Nao is cute and friendly, and I believe our customers will like it.’

It’s the one of the first serious trials of robots in a job based mainly on human interaction - something Japan is leading the world in.

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Nao robots already work in mobile phone outlets in Tokyo.

The robot speaks 19 languages, and analyses people’s facial expressions to work out how he should respond.

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The Nao robots will even be able to pick up different tone of voice when asking customers what services they need.

‘Hello and welcome,’ the bank clerk robot says, ‘I can tell you about money exchange, ATMs, opening a bank account, or overseas remittance. Which one would you like?’