Conversational Banking Gains Acceptance Among Financial Services Firms

Infobip's new Messaging Trends Report reveals how conversational banking is gaining acceptance. For customers used to extensive login processes and security questions on a website, asking a chatbot to check a balance or pay a bill seems unusual, which can create mistrust.

This mistrust has often held back the growth of conversational banking beyond Gen Z. However, Infobip’s latest Messaging Trends report shows this is now changing, with banks and financial institutions responsible for significant traffic on Infobip’s Conversational AI Platform. 

”Banking customers are gaining a better understanding of how mobile phones and chat apps can improve the security of financial transactions by leaning on the native security features of every smartphone and the built-in encryption of chat apps like WhatsApp,” said Ivan Ostojić, Chief Business Officer at Infobip.

Infobip analyzed more than 530 billion interactions on its platform between businesses and consumers in 2024 to identify the latest global business messaging trends and help its customers improve conversation experiences. The data shows a 70% increase in interactions between consumers and financial services organizations in North America in 2024. Meanwhile, interactions in the Middle East are up 77%, and interactions in Europe are up 28%.

Financial services firms employ several conversational channels to provide greater convenience to their consumers. Some 71% of all traffic sent by financial institutions was SMS, while email accounted for 15% of all traffic. WhatsApp interactions accounted for 10%, demonstrating the growing importance of highly engaging, two-way customer interactions.

Infobip’s Messaging Trends report also reveals how banks and financial institutions are making significant progress in adopting chat apps for customer communication and leveraging AI to improve the customer experience, with such organizations responsible for a considerable amount of traffic on Infobip’s Conversational AI Platform.

Many firms are now rolling out sophisticated AI use cases. Analysis of the data from our platform shows that message volumes generated by AI are highest in the finance and insurance sectors. The data also shows that they are adopting the popular digital messaging channels in their region so that customers can communicate on the channels they feel most comfortable with.