PAYMENTS
FOUR INNOVATIONS FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST SHOULD EXPECT TO IMPLEMENT By Nassir Ghrous, SVP Banking & Payment Services for Middle East, Africa & Eurasia region at Thales
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echnological advances and changes in customer expectations over recent years have made a huge impact on the banking and financial services sectors. In many cases, the transformation has been dramatic, with digital technologies enabling new services and totally resetting consumer expectations. The pace of disruption and innovation in finance is unlike anything we’ve seen before, but the industry has shown that it’s become much more comfortable with the shift to digital processes, whether internal or customer-facing. With further innovation arriving almost daily—from opening an account with a selfie to social-media led cryptocurrencies—there are several developments that have had a real impact on businesses and consumers alike. Here are four innovations that financial innovations in the Middle East should expect to implement if they have not already.
MAKING BANKING, MOBILE, DIGITAL AND SECURE WITH BIOMETRICS Digital banking is fast becoming the preferred method for customers to manage their financial needs, with data from McKinsey showing that over 80 per cent of urban consumers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia plan to use their phones or other devices to fulfil their banking needs. But imagine a digital banking experience where we can identify ourselves with absolute certainty, simply by being… ourselves. While the smartphone industry kick-started the mainstream use of fingerprint authentication a few years ago, we are now seeing other biometric factors become part of our everyday lives, especially in payments. From fingerprints, facial and voice recognition or even by analysing the way you type or walk—what we call behavioural biometrics. These technologies are offering new and exciting
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ways to ensure secure and innovative services, while also providing a personalised, secure and convenient experience for customers. In fact, our digital banking survey revealed that over half of UAE consumers are willing to use biometric measures for mobile banking, of which 75 per cent believe they are more secure. Almost half also believe that they are more convenient than traditional methods—after all, your unique biometric data is an intrinsic part of who you are, not something you have to remember like a password. As digital banking starts to completely replace physical branches in the UAE, as already seen with the introduction of digital only propositions such as Liv, biometrics will become key for the future of financial institutions in the country.
ROLLING-OUT INTELLIGENT AND ADAPTIVE FRAUD PREVENTION Authenticating users in any number of given scenarios is a challenge for every bank. But as the number of services that require authentication gets larger, managing them has become an increasing burden. Support in this endeavour is here in the form of cloud-based solutions for user authentication management. These systems use multiple layers of real-time risk management algorithms to set an appropriate level of authentication for any use case, by leveraging contextual analysis and historical data. For example, it could determine how much authentication is required by analysing things like time, location, device type and even biometrical behavioural factors such as the user’s typing pace. This invisible contextual verification results in a secure and frictionless user experience for consumers, as well as reductions in operational and fraud management costs for the bank. With banks adding new services frequently, a cloudbased management platform can allow them to flexibly
