Brand
To overcome the challenges of long customer wait times and high call abandonment rates, the South African bank launched a conversational banking experience on WhatsApp Business Platform, resulting in a 77% first-contact resolution rate and the ability to efficiently support a 37% increase in its client base without making major personnel changes.
Their Story
Low-cost, accessible banking
Capitec Bank is a South African bank known for its strategy of providing simple, accessible and affordable financial services to retail and business clients. Founded in 2001, Capitec disrupted the industry by targeting the underserved low-income market with a low-cost, transparent banking model.
Their Goal
Improving customer service
With a rapidly growing client base that reached 16 million by 2021, Capitec faced significant challenges with its traditional customer service model, which relied on in-branch and call center support. This resulted in excessive customer wait times and high call abandonment rates. Additionally, Capitec’s support team wasn’t always able to efficiently address the high volume of customer inquiries, and transportation costs to access in-branch services added an additional financial burden for some customers.
“Through conversational banking, WhatsApp is helping us bring to life our vision of becoming a trusted financial partner to our clients. By meeting our clients in their preferred channel and engaging on their terms, we’re using WhatsApp not only to simplify their banking experience but also foster meaningful relationships.”
Waldo Steenkamp,
Head of Engineering
Their Solution
Simple, trustworthy banking support
To improve the customer experience while supporting the bank’s continued growth, Capitec launched a conversational banking experience on WhatsApp Business Platform, leveraging marketing, utility and authentication messages on WhatsApp to provide seamless, intuitive customer support. Clients could initiate a conversation by messaging the bank directly on WhatsApp, where the automated experience greeted them warmly and provided a menu of options featuring a user-friendly interface designed for data-light, small-screen navigation.
Services on WhatsApp included:
- Access to self-service features, including account balances, including credit and savings, initiated via utility messages on WhatsApp
- Access to important account documents such as PDF statements and tax certificates, initiated via utility and authentication messages on WhatsApp
- App and account activation requests sent via utility and authentication messages on WhatsApp
- Confirmation or updates of sensitive account information, triggered by the messaging experience and requiring in-app verification
- Loan offers and product information sent via marketing messages on WhatsApp
- Document collection during the credit application process, initiated by marketing messages on WhatsApp
- Receiving and responding to real-time fraud and security alerts sent via utility messages on WhatsApp
- Additional self-serve features, such as card stop requests and debit order dispute requests, triggered by utility messages
For complex questions, customers were seamlessly transferred to a live consultant who was given the full context of the conversation in advance, so customers didn’t have to repeat information.
Their Success
High-volume engagement
Capitec measured the performance of its new approach across a six-month period (April 23-October 23, 2025) and reported that the conversational banking experience was so efficient that 50% of all customer conversations took place on WhatsApp. They also reported:
- First-contact resolution rate increased to 77%*
- 56-point year-over-year increase in customer interactions on WhatsApp*
- The ability to efficiently support all customer requests on WhatsApp without making major personnel changes, despite a 37% increase in the bank’s client base*
*Results are self-reported and not identifiably repeatable. Generally expected individual results will differ.
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