  FinBots are chatbots built on automated decision technology, aimed to
facilitate accessible banking and to support customers in making financial
decisions. Chatbots are increasing in prevalence, sometimes even equipped to
mimic human social rules, expectations and norms, decreasing the necessity for
human-to-human interaction. As banks and financial advisory platforms move
towards creating bots that enhance the current state of consumer trust and
adoption rates, we investigated the effects of chatbot vignettes with and
without socio-emotional features on intention to use the chatbot for financial
support purposes. We conducted a between-subject online experiment with N = 410
participants. Participants in the control group were provided with a vignette
describing a secure and reliable chatbot called XRO23, whereas participants in
the experimental group were presented with a vignette describing a secure and
reliable chatbot that is more human-like and named Emma. We found that Vignette
Emma did not increase participants' trust levels nor lowered their privacy
concerns even though it increased perception of social presence. However, we
found that intention to use the presented chatbot for financial support was
positively influenced by perceived humanness and trust in the bot. Participants
were also more willing to share financially-sensitive information such as
account number, sort code and payments information to XRO23 compared to Emma -
revealing a preference for a technical and mechanical FinBot in information
sharing. Overall, this research contributes to our understanding of the
intention to use chatbots with different features as financial technology, in
particular that socio-emotional support may not be favoured when designed
independently of financial function.
