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kelly. — People, not proxies. The Bank Account Readiness Engine

MA Service Design, Royal College of Art — Unit 4 Independent Research Project, 2026

Mark Bratter

An AI-supported banking service for vulnerable people facing financial exclusion. Kelly demonstrates how AI can support access to complex services while keeping human responsibility clear and evidenced in regulated environments.

Banks often verify documentary proxies rather than the full context of a person's life. Around 0.9 million UK adults are unbanked, and of the 1.3 million people who applied for a basic account in the two years to May 2024, approximately 10% were declined (FCA Financial Lives, 2024; FCA basic-account application data). Exclusion can arise when a person's circumstances do not produce the documentary format a bank expects — not because they are a risk.

The project

Kelly acts as an AI-supported advocate and continuity layer. It gathers and structures the evidence available, preserves declared uncertainty and gaps rather than hiding them, and prepares a case for human review. It flags risk, stops where authority is required, and does not make the regulated decision itself — responsibility for that decision is handed to an authorised human banker.

  • How it works
    1. The visitor begins the iPad experience.
    2. One of five exclusion personas is assigned.
    3. Three stages expose identity, address and account-retention barriers.
    4. The visitor receives a decline outcome.
    5. The physical interaction produces a receipt and may include an operator-issued NFC card.
    6. The card links to https://kelly.igyb.studio.
    7. A live Kelly demonstration shows how the same case could be structured for human review.

    The five exclusion personas:

    • No Fixed Address
    • Recent Migrant
    • Recently Separated
    • Informal Housing
    • Precarious Worker
  • Safeguards and human authority
    • Kelly does not approve accounts.
    • Kelly does not replace KYC, AML, CDD, GDPR or regulated human responsibility.
    • Kelly is not a bank.
    • Kelly is not a credit-scoring system.
    • Kelly is not a document-verification authority.
    • Consequential decisions remain with authorised staff.
  • About this project

    Mark Bratter worked as a team of one on Kelly, responsible for problem framing, research, service architecture, governance and ethical boundaries, interaction design, exhibition development, and direction of technical implementation using AI agents under dual-control governance.

    Kelly was developed as a working exhibition demonstrator for the Royal College of Art degree show in July 2026.

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