FCMB Nigeria: Driving growth and loyalty through conversational banking
Find out how FCMB Nigeria is embracing conversational banking to drive growth and improve access to financial services, customer satisfaction, and business efficiency.
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Conversational banking is transforming customer experience (CX) in the financial industry in Africa, with an increasing number of players leveraging messaging apps, chatbots, and AI to provide seamless, personalized interactions. According to the World Bank, over 160 million people in Africa gained broadband internet access between 2019 and 2022.
Yet, despite the continent’s rapid digital adoption, almost half of its population (52%) remains unbanked. And with 75 percent of the continent’s web traffic happening on mobile phones, many banks are joining the race to provide access to financial services by jumping straight into mobile platforms.
But African banks aren’t just offering mobile banking to speed up digital transformation. They know how important it is to build and maintain meaningful relationships by engaging with customers on their terms. At the same time, they are simplifying transactions and building trust and loyalty by making banking more accessible and responsive.
To better understand how banks embrace this trend, we spoke with Oluwole Coker, Head of Mobile and Internet Banking at FCMB Nigeria. Watch the video or read on to discover how banks make conversational banking a central part of their business strategy while navigating complex security and compliance regulations.
Conversational banking in action
Conversational banking enables banks to streamline operations and simplify CX. This allows customers to seamlessly transact and communicate through their preferred messaging apps, on their own terms.
Conversational banking can assist customers in:
- Account management: Opening new accounts, checking balances, money transfers, changing passwords, or adding users have never been simpler.
- Targeted messaging: Banks can send relevant offers directly to customers.
- Loan applications: Tailored support throughout what was once a tedious, stressful process.
And the best part? If a customer needs more help with a complex query, they can always be transferred to a human agent, ensuring that the conversation is maintained when technology fails to do so.
The benefits of conversational banking
As many African consumers enter the virtual world, they approach digital channels with caution. They still value face-to-face interactions to forge relationships and trust, and banks like FCMB fully understand why they need to maintain the human element in their CX.
Some consumers prefer SMS, others prefer email, and others prefer messaging apps like WhatsApp. What needs to happen is to understand these preferences and provide communication on each customer’s preferred channel.
![](https://cdn-web.infobip.com/uploads/2024/07/FCMB_Speaker_thumbnail-1.webp)
Oluwole Coker
Head of Mobile and Internet Banking – FCMB Nigeria
FCMB is embracing the benefits of AI and generative AI to boost their CX. Just like retailers harness AI to sell items through messaging apps, conversational banking brings that same CX to financial services.
Banks can provide support through the entire financial journey using an omnichannel platform, crafting bespoke interactions that elevate the banking experience.
Infobip’s conversational platform offers various channels, ranging from WhatsApp Business, Facebook Messenger, RCS Business Messaging, and more.
FCMB uses WhatsApp Business to provide a wide range of services from accessing account balances, statements, and loan balances to blocking lost or stolen cards.
But FCMB knows that access to instant messaging channels might be limited in some instances –a customer might lose data access in a rural area, or run out of prepaid data. That’s why traditional messaging channels like SMS are always on standby.
The business case for conversational banking
Conversational banking is not just about prioritizing favorite channels. On the back end, efficient data collection helps banks to improve their CX even further. It enables them to gather detailed information about customer preferences and needs with every interaction to tailor future communications, whether transactional or promotional.
The technology behind conversational banking improves efficiencies, significantly improving banks’ ROI. Research by Accenture found that conversational banking can reduce costs by up to 30 percent.
Banks have the opportunity to increase efficiency and cut costs by implementing the following strategies:
- AI-supported chatbots handling FAQs empower agents to focus on more complex inquiries and better resolution.
- Gathering data from chat interactions speeds up future customer service. Customer data platforms enable agents to better understand individual preferences and needs, leading to faster service, improved satisfaction, and retention.
- Streamlined security measures like mobile verification and authentication reduce the need for human support, further freeing contact center capacity (read on to learn more about this).
- Scalability of omnichannel platforms – like Infobip’s – makes sustaining conversational CX with a growing business easy and cost-effective.
Finding the sweet spot between compliance and conversational banking
While conversational banking might seem simple on the front end, banks require a lot of measures on the back end to stay compliant.
Using the GDPR as a benchmark, FCMB is all too aware of the threat of data breaches. They need solid security measures, but at the same time they try to keep things simple to reduce the number of processes. That’s why it is important to strike a perfect balance between keeping data secure while ensuring that the user experience remains simple and seamless.
Infobip helps banks reduce friction in safeguards with a range of effective, multilayer solutions:
- Two-factor authentication (2FA) adds an extra layer of security by requiring both an online password and a mobile phone for verification. A one-time PIN (OTP) is generated and sent to the user’s mobile device via SMS or WhatsApp, which the user then enters into the application to confirm their identity.
- A SIM Swap Check enhances security for mobile payments by ensuring that account-related information reaches the intended recipient, thereby reducing the risk of fraud and identity theft.
- Silent mobile verification might not be widely adopted in the African market, but this feature offers a seamless onboarding experience. Instead of receiving a code via email or SMS, silent mobile verification authenticates users within seconds without requiring human input.
By ensuring market-leading security solutions like these are in place, banks can build and maintain the trust and security. They can also protect their own interests by reducing fraud risk and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards like the GDPR.
The future of conversational banking is now
Conversational banking offers endless opportunities to better understand customer behavior, preferences, and needs.
Banks navigating rapid digital transformation in developing regions like Africa require the right communication technology partner. Infobip’s conversational platform helps banks like FCMB grow their digital services, improving support, sales, and marketing.
Our customer engagement solution coupled with our customer data platform will make your communication even easier. Partnering with us will help you become more efficient, cut costs, and keep customers satisfied, all through one-scalable-AI communication platform.
Working with Infobip enabled us to shift from fragmented services to ‘superhubs’—by integrating platforms and combining banking, insurance, fintech, and innovative services to make every interaction feel personal and valued.
![](https://cdn-web.infobip.com/uploads/2024/07/FCMB_Speaker_thumbnail.webp)
Oluwole Coker
Head of Mobile and Internet Banking – FCMB Nigeria