Raiffeisen Bank International: Digital transformation with a human touch

Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) operates across a diverse set of Central and Eastern European markets, each with its own customer behaviors, regulatory realities, and expectations of banking service. As customer interactions have moved decisively into digital channels, RBI’s challenge has not been whether to digitize, but how to enhance customer experience with human strengths that differentiate the brand.

As Iryna Arzner, Head of Customer Growth, Retail Banking at RBI, puts it: “We believe in digital banking with a human touch.”

In our conversation, she shared how the bank is ensuring that every customer, regardless of profile or location, receives a personalized and meaningful experience across every touchpoint.

Building modern customer engagement

RBI’s partnership with Infobip began by solving a practical problem: how to stay close to customers as they moved to digital channels. SMS provided the initial backbone, followed by Viber in markets where it plays a central role in everyday communication.

“We were moving together with our customers into digital channels and had to find new ways of communicating with them where they were moving,” Arzner explains.

Over time, this evolved into a comprehensive engagement layer spanning outbound notifications, two-way messaging, and conversational touchpoints embedded directly into RBI’s mobile apps and websites. Chatbots now support customers around the clock, enabling faster responses and consistent self-service across markets.

The result has been more relevant communication, improved customer engagement, and a smoother experience for customers engaging digitally.

Prioritizing digital transformation with human touch

As RBI’s digital transformation journey progressed and digital capabilities scaled, it became clear that efficiency alone was not enough. Research consistently shows that while digital banking is expected, it often lacks empathy and emotional connection.

“This digital world often lacks empathy and human connection,” says Arzner. “That’s why we’re doing both things in parallel – digitizing, while deliberately bringing in the human touch our customers value so much.”

Rather than removing humans from the equation, RBI is redefining their role. Simple servicing increasingly happens through automation and self-service, while human advisers focus on higher-value interactions.

“Humans are not here to solve simple problems anymore,” Arzner notes. “They’re here to elevate the digital experience through top-notch advisory.”

Personalized customer engagement: remote collaboration

Remote collaboration is a cornerstone of RBI’s human channels strategy. The bank recognized early that customers value human interaction, but not necessarily physical presence.

“People seek human interaction – just not always in a branch,” Arzner explains.

Relationship managers across multiple countries are now equipped to collaborate with customers remotely using messaging, screen sharing, and document exchange. This approach reflects changing customer habits, particularly among younger generations who increasingly prefer text-based interactions over voice.

Currently, RBI has enabled remote collaboration across seven markets, with relationship managers now equipped to provide advisory remotely. To support this broader shift, RBI is rolling out remote collaboration tools at scale, ultimately enabling around 10,000 agents and advisers across its network.

Achieving international scale

Operating across ten markets means standardization must always be balanced with local nuance. RBI delivers solutions in close collaboration with its network banks, using agile, cross-functional teams that include technology partners as active contributors rather than external vendors.

“We don’t really treat our vendors as vendors,” says Arzner. “We work together operationally on what’s necessary for each individual market.”

This model allows RBI to maintain a unified strategy while adapting execution to local channel preferences and regulatory requirements.

Synergy between conversational AI and human advisers

Looking ahead, RBI expects customer interactions to shift further towards self-service and AI-assisted engagement. Intelligent agents will increasingly handle routine banking tasks, supported by RBI’s in-house teams building AI-powered chat and voice capabilities.

“We believe intelligent agents will take over a big part of the banking jobs our customers do today,” Arzner says.

Crucially, automation is not seen as a replacement for human advisers, but as an amplifier. AI-powered self-service forms the foundation, while human advisers – supported by agentic tools – focus on complex, high-value conversations.

Harnessing partnership for customer engagement

Large-scale deployments rarely run smoothly, particularly in the final stages before go-live. During the rollout of RBI’s remote collaboration platform in Romania, last‑minute issues surfaced across tooling, processes, and user readiness.

“In the last mile before go-live, everything can feel like a disaster,” Arzner recalls.

What stood out was the ability of the team in Raiffeisen Bank Romania, RBI and Infobip teams to resolve these challenges collaboratively in a compressed timeframe, enabling the launch to proceed as planned.

“We managed to solve all of these last-mile hiccups together within one week,” she says.

The future of customer engagement in banking

RBI sees the future of retail banking and customer experience shaped by demographic change, evolving customer expectations, and the rise of conversational and agentic AI. Rather than betting on a single interaction model, the bank is deliberately building a portfolio of engagement options – mobile apps, human advisory, and AI-driven conversations.

“Our customers are diverse, and they will continue to be,” Arzner says. “Some want a human touch, some prefer mobile apps, and some will move into conversational AI. We need to offer all of those options.”

In an increasingly digital landscape, RBI and Infobip’s approach reflects a shared philosophy: a highly customer-oriented platform built for scale, yet agile enough to evolve with each customer’s needs. It’s about scaling technology without losing humanity – and giving customers the freedom to choose how they engage.