Mélodie Leduc interview | Crédit Mutuel group

"We often tend to see banking and digital as being in opposition, but that's a cliché."

Mélodie Leduc

Human Resources Manager, Crédit Mutuel Loire Atlantique Centre Ouest

We use artificial intelligence to streamline our advisors' work.

For young people, working at a bank may seem like joining a sector that has nothing to do with digital and new technologies. What do you say to them?

We often tend to see banking and digital as being in opposition, but things are changing so quickly that banks have no other choice but to adapt, especially if they want to attract young talent. That’s why Crédit Mutuel has formed a partnership with IBM, for example, with the goal of gradually implementing artificial intelligence solutions in all banking and insurance businesses where they can potentially drive growth. AI is a real source of change for employees in the banking sector, particularly in terms of responding more quickly to requests from customer-members.

Can you describe the possible applications of this program with IBM?

Today, four robots (editor's note: virtual assistants) are used at a few businesses to help advisors, and an email analysis solution classifies customer correspondence. We therefore use artificial intelligence to streamline the work and to support an augmented relationship between the customer and the advisor.

In practical terms, how do you innovate in your work area?

If I take the recruitment process, which we recently redesigned in our Crédit Mutuel federation – we have used Visiotalent since January – we organize our interviews in the form of a video recording, which replace the usual phone interviews. Selected candidates receive a link that allows them to answer three or four questions from home, at their convenience. This does not prevent us from also organizing group recruitment sessions at the head office or directly at our branches. For example, in Nantes, we organized a job dating event for the first time in March of this year for our future work-study employees recruitment session.
We are also on LinkedIn, which allows us to share Crédit Mutuel’s values of commitment and proximity with as many people as possible.

How did the job dating event in Nantes work?

We invited employees that we had pre-selected to one of our showcase branches in downtown Nantes from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. They were interviewed by two human resources managers and were shown a presentation video of Crédit Mutuel. It was an opportunity for them to speak with the various representatives of the bank, including the manager, and to get a good understanding of the world in which they might be working.

What were the results?

The result was very positive, particularly for the candidates present during the interviews. It was something quite new for them. They appreciated this exchange not only with an HR Manager, but also with sales advisors.

The people that we selected during a recruitment event receive a link that allows them to answer three or four questions, which they can do from home, at their convenience.