Euromoney, an international financial magazine, named Raiffeisen Bank Hungary the country's best retail digital bank. Rajna Gábor, Deputy CEO for Retail at Raiffeisen Bank, says the recognition reflects a strategic direction and a sequence of decisions rather than a single project. The award highlights two aspects: retail customers (including some sole proprietors and small businesses whose banking resembles that of private individuals) and digitally designed customer processes used consistently across channels.
Which developments led to the recognition?
According to Rajna, the first major step was the full digitalization of the customer onboarding process. This includes selecting an account package, requesting a payment card, completing required declarations and regulatory customer‑due‑diligence questionnaires. Subsequent developments addressed unsecured loans and investment processes in the app, so today the bank offers digital solutions for most customer needs.
Small business customers and segmentation
Rajna emphasizes that micro and small business customers often have access to the same digital channels as retail customers. The bank segments customers primarily based on behavior: if a sole proprietor's financial behavior resembles that of a private individual, they receive retail‑type digital service. Product differences remain important: state‑supported schemes, such as those linked to the Széchenyi Card Program, involve multiple parties, guarantees and special conditions, making full digitalization more difficult.
What is easy or hard to digitalize?
Frequent and simple processes—such as unsecured personal loans—are well suited to digitalization because they rely mainly on assessing repayment capacity. By contrast, secured loans, mortgages and investment loans are more complex and currently represent an upper bound for digitalization.
Cornerstones of the digital strategy
Rajna outlines three main elements of the bank's digital strategy:
- Solutions geared to customer needs;
- immediacy: 24/7 availability and fast, minute‑scale processes (for example, a card that can appear in a mobile wallet within minutes);
- personalization: providing relevant offers at the right life moments.
He stressed that many banking services should be primarily available in the mobile app, because customers increasingly want to do more on their phones.
Complaints handling and balancing digital with personal service
For complaints handling the key is a healthy balance between digital and personal channels: simple issues are handled efficiently by digital tools (e.g. chatbots), while complex cases are transferred to human advisors. The bank already uses AI to detect customer intent in its chatbot, but response delivery is controlled so that the bank provides accurate and consistent answers; responsibility for final responses remains with humans.
How the bank measures success
The bank relies on direct customer feedback: app ratings, usage statistics (who uses a function, whether users complete processes, where they get stuck), conversion rates and customer satisfaction at the end of a process. They also track the number and types of cases handed over from chatbots to live agents.
Digital maturity of Hungarian customers and the role of education
Rajna believes Hungarian customers are digitally mature and there is no sharp generational divide; older cohorts also use digital channels. Banking, however, is a trust‑based area where clarity and security matter more than in many other digital services. Therefore processes should be built in customer language. The bank finds that once a customer tries a digital banking function, they rarely return to offline procedures, which makes branch‑based customer education important. Branches remain relevant for major decisions and for onboarding customers to use simple digital services later at home.
Account switching and the impact of digital experience
Hungarians tend to be relatively loyal to their banks, and account switching is not yet routine; when it happens, it often follows a bad experience rather than attraction to a single new offer. Rajna argues that digital developments are an important part of the value proposition but seldom sufficient on their own to trigger switching. When a customer decides to switch, however, a fast, simple and stable account opening process can be a real competitive advantage.
Neobanks and incumbents
The arrival of neobanks positively shook the market by demonstrating customer appetite for mobile onboarding, digital servicing and simple, convenient user experiences. Traditional banks had to respond and today there is little difference in customer experience between many incumbents and neobanks. Regulatory changes have also aligned the playing field in many respects, though Rajna sees further work needed. Raiffeisen does not think in purely digital terms: long‑term competitiveness will favor those who combine digital channels with personal advice.
Regulation, security and suggested changes
Security is one of banking's core values; customers must trust that their money is safe. Rajna says the goal is a healthy balance: banking should be fast, simple, understandable and secure. Some regulations, however, complicate rather than enhance practical security. He suggests regulatory innovations—such as allowing automated, API‑based access to verified state data (for example income information) in certain lending processes—would speed up and make lending more transparent and secure.
The future role of personal advice
Branch‑based personal service will remain important where matters are complex, rare or emotionally significant—large investments, home purchases, starting a business or inheritance cases. The objective is to ensure branch interactions focus on client communication and advice rather than paperwork, while digital tools smooth the underlying processes.
The publication of this article was supported by Raiffeisen Bank.
Cover image and photos: Portfolio – Berecz Valter
Tags: information technology, artificial intelligence, customer experience, digitalization, Raiffeisen Bank, neobank, account opening, digital banking, mobile banking, chatbot, retail banking
