Rawbank Expands Digital Banking Drive With New SBS Suite in Congo
Rawbank, the Democratic Republic of Congo's largest bank by assets, is widening its digital banking offer by adopting the SBS Digital Banking Suite, extending a software relationship that already runs the lender's core system. The bank says the platform will speed up online account opening, card and payment management, and remote self-service for customers spread across a country where most adults still sit outside the formal banking system. The agreement, announced on 20 October 2026, pairs Rawbank's local reach with a Paris-based vendor that supplies more than 1,500 financial institutions in over 80 countries.
What is Rawbank actually adopting from SBS?
A customer-facing digital layer that sits on top of the core banking system Rawbank already licenses from SBS. The bank runs SBS Core Amplitude, the vendor's modular core platform used widely across Africa and the Middle East, and is now adding the SBS Digital Banking Suite to handle the front end: mobile and web apps, digital onboarding, and card and payment servicing. In practice, that means shorter wait times to open an account online and more account management that customers can complete without visiting a branch. SBS markets the suite as able to stand up a fully designed bank in 90 days, a claim the company has not substantiated for this deployment. Rawbank has not disclosed a go-live date or a contract value.
Why does this matter in a market where most adults have no bank account?
Because the economics of serving the DRC favour digital distribution over branches. Of a population above 100 million, only around a quarter hold a bank account, according to the Central Bank of the Congo. Mobile money has filled much of the gap: the country recorded roughly 34.3 million mobile money subscriptions at the end of 2025, a penetration rate of about 30.6 per cent, up from near 7 million in 2019, on regulator figures compiled by BDO. Vodacom's M-Pesa leads that market with more than half of active users, ahead of Airtel Money, Orange Money and Afrimoney. For a deposit-taking bank such as Rawbank, a stronger digital channel is the most realistic route to convert cash users and mobile-wallet holders into banked customers.
How does the deal fit Rawbank's wider strategy?
It reinforces a digital push the bank has run for several years while it scales up in corporate and investment banking. Rawbank launched IllicoCash, one of the DRC's first retail digital banking and mobile-wallet services, and has built out more than 2,000 agency banking points to reach areas without branches. The lender reported total assets of $6.82 billion and net profit of $232 million for 2025, up 9 per cent, and ranked as the largest bank in Central Africa by total assets in Jeune Afrique's 2024 league table. In April 2026 it co-arranged the DRC's first sovereign eurobond alongside Citigroup and Standard Chartered. Keeping its retail technology on the same supplier as its core reduces integration risk, though it also deepens Rawbank's reliance on a single vendor.
Who is SBS, and what does the tie-up signal?
SBS, formerly Sopra Banking Software, is a Paris-based banking software group that rebranded in 2024 after Axway acquired it and the two combined to form the listed group 74Software. It employs more than 3,400 people and counts Santander, Société Générale, BNP Paribas and HSBC among its clients, and Everest Group ranks it among the leading global core banking vendors. Its Core Amplitude platform is positioned specifically for African and Middle Eastern banks. Winning an expanded mandate at the DRC's largest lender strengthens the vendor's regional claim at a point when global core banking suppliers are competing hard for African incumbents replacing ageing systems.
What does it mean for competition in Central Africa?
It raises the digital bar for rivals. Rawbank's closest challenger, Equity BCDC, the Congolese arm of Kenya's Equity Group, has been narrowing the asset gap, and the DRC is preparing a national interbank payment platform expected to improve interoperability between banks and mobile money. A faster Rawbank app and quicker onboarding put pressure on competitors to match the experience, and on mobile money operators to defend the customer relationships they built first. The heavy dollarisation of the system, with about 88 per cent of deposits held in foreign currency in mid-2026, remains a structural backdrop that digital tools alone will not shift.
Why This Matters to FinanceX Readers
For investors and operators tracking African banking, Rawbank's move marks where growth capital is heading: into customer-facing digital infrastructure in frontier markets with low banking penetration and high mobile adoption.
The read-across is twofold. First, incumbents, not only fintech challengers, are driving digital banking build-outs in sub-Saharan Africa, and they are doing it by layering modern engagement software over modernised cores. Second, established European vendors now treat Africa as a core growth market rather than a peripheral one. The open question for Rawbank is execution: a digital layer only pays off if onboarding, uptime and support hold up at scale, and the bank has yet to put dates or targets against the rollout.
