Discover how the DRC’s largest bank partnered with Sinch and Campfire to automate customer interactions at scale, cutting call center pressure in the process.
Operating since 2002, Rawbank is the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s largest universal bank. As its customer base grew, so did support wait times and pressure on its call centers. At the same time, smartphone ownership rose quickly across the DRC, and demand for instant, digital-first interactions.
More agents could absorb some of that load. But the underlying problem — customers wanting faster self-service answers around the clock — wasn’t going to go away.
Fabrice Hainaut, Deputy Director Performances and Branches Network at Rawbank, saw where things were heading.
We needed to modernize our customer support by offering instant, always-on banking services through a channel our customers already use daily. Traditional channels like call centers were becoming overloaded and less aligned with the growing demand for real-time, mobile-first interactions.
- Fabrice Hainaut, Deputy Director Performances and Branches Network, Rawbank
Rawbank partnered with Sinch and Campfire to build Rawbot — a chatbot powered by Sinch Chatlayer across WhatsApp, web, and social media.
The WhatsApp chatbot has been particularly helpful as more customers shift from traditional banking channels to digital. Now, many customers are comfortable checking their sensitive bank information on WhatsApp instead of visiting branches.
Rawbot connects to the bank’s core systems through secure APIs, so customers get live account information without switching apps. Balance checks, mini-statements, fund transfers, card management, PDF account statements — all handled inside WhatsApp.
If a request falls outside what Rawbot can manage, it routes the conversation to a live agent, so no one gets stuck.
The chatbot’s service menu is extensive:
Because customers can do all of this securely 24/7 without a branch visit or phone call, Rawbot has lowered wait times and call center operational costs.
To put this into perspective, Rawbot handled more than 650,000 messages across over 220,000 conversations in just 30 days. And the chatbot had a 97% automated resolution rate, which gave human support agents more time to handle complex issues.
Rawbank now serves over 900,000 customers and is growing as more people shift from branch visits to WhatsApp for their day-to-day banking.
The team monitors Rawbot performance through Sinch Chatlayer’s analytics dashboard — tracking message volumes, NLP understanding rates, button interactions, and conversation outcomes. That data feeds directly into improvements to the bot’s flows and responses.
Rawbank’s next step is to expand Rawbot’s capabilities — more advanced WhatsApp features, custom conversational flows, and a wider set of transactions the bot can complete without human involvement.
If you want to discuss AI in more detail, then reach out to Alexis.
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