In Kenya's competitive banking and finance sector, the ability to convert customer interactions into successful transactions is becoming an increasingly critical strategy for financial institutions, aiming to distinguish themselves.
With the country's rapidly expanding mobile penetration, coupled with an increasingly tech-savvy customer base, there is a need for the adoption of innovative communication strategies to maintain a competitive edge.
Kenyan banks are progressively embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance the customer experience, improve operational efficiency and secure their market positions.
By leveraging AI analytics, financial institutions can gain deeper insights into customer behaviour and preferences, enabling them to offer tailored solutions such as personalised loans and investment options.
Conversational banking is another significant area where AI is making an impact. Intelligent chatbots and virtual assistants now provide 24/7 support for routine tasks, maintaining highly personalised customer engagement.
AI is also transforming credit scoring and loan approvals. By analysing alternative data sources, banks generate more accurate credit profiles, allowing them to extend loans to previously underserved customers.
In light of this, AI-driven fraud detection and prevention have become essential. Advanced AI algorithms monitor transactions in real-time, continuously learning to ensure secure online banking activities. Kenyan banks are also leveraging AI for hyper-personalised marketing.
Conversational banking powered by AI and chatbots is playing a crucial role in addressing financial inclusion challenges in Kenya.
By leveraging popular chat apps like WhatsApp, conversational banking can deliver financial services to underbanked populations without requiring high-end devices.
AI-powered chatbots provide information in local languages and in simple terms, empowering users to better understand basic financial concepts, while also reducing the need for physical branches which decreases operational costs.
Conversational banking chatbots can seamlessly integrate with mobile money platforms like M-Pesa, enabling registered users to link accounts and transfer funds with ease.
Measuring AI’s Impact
The success of AI-driven conversation-based strategies should be measured using a mix of customer-centric, operational and financial metrics.
By tracking this balanced set of metrics, institutions can assess the effectiveness of their AI-driven conversational strategies, identify areas for improvement and ensure they are delivering both business value and superior customer experiences.
However, financial institutions must strike the right balance between automation and maintaining a human touch in customer interactions, by adopting a hybrid approach that balances efficiency and empathy.
The key is to ensure human oversight for complex tasks while automating routine transactions.
Kenyan financial institutions must continue adopting innovative communication strategies to effectively engage their growing tech-savvy customer base. Traditional methods are no longer sufficient for converting interactions into business outcomes.
AI chatbots excel at straightforward tasks like balance enquiries or bill payments, delivering efficiency and speed.
However, for more nuanced services that require emotional intelligence, such as loan negotiations, investment advice, or complaint resolution, human agents remain integral. By embracing a hybrid approach, Kenyan banks can combine the scalability and efficiency of AI with the personalised care essential for building trust and meeting diverse customer needs.
Ultimately, AI-powered interactions play a pivotal role in boosting customer loyalty and driving business growth in banking. By leveraging advanced analytics, AI chatbots deliver highly personalised product recommendations and targeted communications, tailored to individual needs.
Additionally, their 24/7 availability and quick query resolution enhance efficiency, reducing wait times and proactively addressing customer concerns. Together, these capabilities foster personalisation, trust, and operational excellence.
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, fraud detection and prevention are more critical than ever. AI is revolutionising this space by enabling faster, more accurate, and scalable solutions to combat fraudulent activities.
AI-powered systems analyse vast amounts of data in real time, identifying patterns and anomalies that traditional methods might miss. Machine learning models continuously adapt to evolving fraud tactics, staying ahead of emerging threats.
Future outlook
AI-driven solutions offer a pathway to improved, enriched, and elevated customer engagement. By integrating AI with human expertise, banks can foster trust, enhance efficiency, and drive long-term growth in the financial sector.
By embracing AI responsibly and strategically, Kenyan banks can set new standards in customer experience, financial inclusion, and fraud prevention, ensuring a more secure and customer-friendly banking environment.
About Infobip
Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey.
Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication and contact centre solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications to grow business and increase loyalty.
It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 6 continents connected to over 9,700+ connections of which 800+ are direct operator connections. Infobip was established in 2006 and is led by its co-founders, CEO Silvio Kutić, Roberto Kutić and Izabel Jelenić.
Recent award wins include:
Infobip named one of the top CPaaS providers in Metrigy’s CPaaS MetriRank Report (Dec 2024)
Infobip named number one among Established Leaders in RCS Business Messaging in Juniper Research’s RCS Business Messaging Competitor Leaderboard 2024 (Nov 2024)
Infobip recognized as the number one provider in the AIT Fraud Prevention market by Juniper Research (October 2024)
Infobip named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) 2024 for the second year running (June 2024)
Infobip named to Fast Company’s Annual List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies (March 2024)
Infobip named a leader in the CPaaS Leaderboard, Juniper Research (March 2024)
Infobip ranked as number one Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) provider, in the inaugural MetriRank CPaaS Report from Metrigy (Dec 2023)
Infobip named a leader in the CCaaS Leaderboard, Juniper Research (Dec 2023)
Omdia Ranks Infobip as Leader for the second year running in its CPaaS Universe Report (Nov 2023)
Infobip named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) 2023 (Sept 2023)
Infobip named a leader in the Juniper Customer Data Platform Leaderboard Report (July 2023)
Infobip named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) 2023 Vendor Assessment (May 2023)
The writer is Head of Enterprise Business, East Africa at Infobip
