WhatsApp banking: 19 examples for better customer experiences

Can you remember the last time you visited your bank? It’s probably been a while since you can do almost everything over your smartphone.  

That’s all thanks to the digital transformation banks and financial institutions have undergone over the last few years and the introduction of conversational banking.  

So, let’s dive right into everything you should know about banking over WhatsApp and how to get started.  

Banking over WhatsApp enables financial institutions to provide support, send marketing messages, and capitalize on cross sell and upsell opportunities over the popular chat app. From discovery and onboarding to conversions and re-engagement, WhatsApp banking can make automating use cases simpler, allowing banks to offer more convenient and better service to its customers. 

One of the biggest advantages of WhatsApp is that it enables conversational banking. The channel makes it easy to implement banking chatbots, use engaging message types, and implement a wide range of use cases to create end to end journey. Younger generations specifically look for ways to easily connect with banks, and conversational banking on WhatsApp offers that edge. 

Listen to how Zenith bank uses WhatsApp to create natural and conversational experiences with their customers:

A growing number of customers have turned to WhatsApp as a primary communication channel, reaching 2 billion users. This gives brands access to customers on a channel they regularly use to communicate with friends and family.  

Secure banking is an absolute must for both customers and banks. Every WhatsApp message is protected by Signal protocol encryption. This means that the message is secured before it leaves the device of the sender and is securely delivered to its desired destination. Signal protocol encryption protects the integrity of your messages and ensures businesses can send sensitive materials or information over WhatsApp. 

Using instant messaging with rich media and chatbot automation on WhatsApp eliminates the need for lengthy calls to your contact center – and frequently asked questions taking up your agents’ time. 

Automating messages on WhatsApp can help live agents focus on complex and urgent queries. If you connect your WhatsApp channel with a cloud contact center then you can also provide your agents with contextual information for every customer, so they can avoid asking repetitive questions and speeding up time to resolution.

In the end, banking over WhatsApp makes the entire experience more convenient for users. They can resolve their own queries with self-service options, get support 24/7, and engage with their bank over the channel they are familiar with.  

You want to make sure your customers know they have the option of interacting with their bank over WhatsApp. Adding entry points to your WhatsApp channel from multiple sources can help promote your WhatsApp service and encourage more customers to use WhatsApp for customer support.  

Why is this important? Well, you cannot interact with customers without collecting their opt-in (aka consent), and if they are the first to open the conversation, then they have given your brand consent to send them messages in the future. They can always opt-out as well, so make sure your messages are helpful and not spammy. 

Examples of entry points include: 

To offer customers stellar customer service, you should consider implementing a WhatsApp chatbot. You can speed up time to resolution, improve satisfaction, reduce costs, and improve visibility of campaigns with a WhatsApp chatbot.  

Here are just a few use cases that can be automated with a chatbot: 

Adding a cloud contact center will make your entire customer service processes seamless. Live agents can access a full view of the customer’s chat history and get real contextualized information on the customer. Using a cloud contact center allows for a chatbot and live agents to be aligned and in sync so that customers can get the best experience possible. 

Security is a priority for every bank, financial services, and fintech brands worldwide. Reassuring clients that their data is safe over a chat app can definitely be a challenge. Using WhatsApp might sound risky or uncertain, but choosing the right WhatsApp provider will help keep your messages compliant with local laws and regulations and secure.  

Infobip is a fully compliant WhatsApp Business Platform partner that ensures every message that passes through our platform is a compliant one. Thanks to 24/7 support available in your local language, you can get the support you need to make sure you stay on top of security and compliance and keep your WhatsApp channel a success. 

Nigeria’s leading financial institution, Zenith Bank, used WhatsApp to reduce the number of calls made to their contact center for mundane or simple queries. They used a WhatsApp chatbot to give customers self-service options, available 24/7 and get real-time support. 

Zenith Bank reduced the cost of their call center and improved their reach with their customers all thanks to a self-service WhatsApp chatbot. 

One of India’s leading financial institutions was looking for ways to interact with younger generations and offer convenient and interactive experiences. Anand Rathi built a highly customized WhatsApp chatbot with Infobip to offer an engaging customer journey over the chat app. 

They reported 98% decrease in time taken to access research reports, a 40% click-through rate, and a 10% increase in conversions.  

Reflect, a neobank in Jordan, wanted to improve their engagement rates and offer an overall better customer experience. Reflect worked with Infobip to design an end-to-end banking journey using multiple solutions, including a WhatsApp chatbot.  

The chatbot provided a response time of less than 30 seconds, offering fast answers to FAQs, and transferring to live agents when necessary. 

DinarPAY enables mobile wallet services across the Middle East and North Africa. To reach more of its customers and improve their customer service, they introduced WhatsApp as a customer service channel in addition to SMS.  

Since its launch, WhatsApp helped expand their customer base by 50% and reach a 70% success ratio in handling queries.  

Proving broking and advisory services in India, Angel Broking wanted to digitalize their services and improve experiences for people who are new to stock trading. They opted to use WhatsApp as the channel to offer customers easy onboarding, one-on-one support, verification services and more.  

Creating a digital journey on WhatsApp resulted in 39% of customers being onboarded over WhatsApp, and 47% engaging with Angel Broking over WhatsApp every month.  

A payroll service provider in the UAE was quickly scaling its businesses and needed to implement a solution that would improve customer experience and keep costs low.  

By implementing a WhatsApp chatbot, Edenred could offer customer service in multiple languages, offer support 24/7, and transfer to an agent for more complex queries. They were able to reduce wait times to their call center by 96%, and 70% of customers could find the solution to their issues without being transferred to an agent. 

The WhatsApp Business Platform API offers easy integration into a bank’s existing systems. That means banks can continue to use any existing software like CRMs, contact centers, and customer data platforms and easily integrate WhatsApp into their tech stack. WhatsApp APIs enable banks to scale their messages to customers, automate interactions and use cases, implement chatbots, and much more.  

Banks can program and create customized communication flows using all the features available over WhatsApp so that they can streamline processes like onboarding or account creation, and guide customers through their journey. 

As a WhatsApp Business solution provider and trusted Meta partner, Infobip provides banking institutions with the tools and guidance they need to create a solid communication strategy. 

With our SaaS solutions and CX consulting, banks can maximize their use of WhatsApp by: 

Utilizing the world’s most popular chat app allows banks to connect with customers in a personal, trusted, and familiar way. Banks and financial institutions that offered their services via WhatsApp with Infobip were able to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and continue to improve customer satisfaction – all on a single platform.