Arab Investment Bank selects Temenos to drive digital growth and financial inclusion

Temenos announced that Arab Investment Bank has selected Temenos to power its digital customer experience. Arab Investment Bank chose the marketleading capabilities of Temenos Infinity and Temenos Payments to improve performance, drive its digital growth strategy and provide a boost to financial inclusion for millions of Egyptians.

Arab Investment Bank, which is among one of the fastest growing banks in Egypt, provides personal and business banking products as well as investment and Islamic banking services. With Temenos Infinity, the bank has embarked on a digital transformation journey to make banking and financial services easier, faster and more accessible for all Egyptians. Egypt has an adult population of over 67 million and while over 90 per cent have a mobile phone, only 1 in 3 has a bank account and less than 6 per cent made digital payments in the last year.

Arab Investment Bank already uses Temenos Transact as its core banking technology. Now, with Temenos Infinity, the bank benefits from the leading omnichannel digital banking product covering customer engagement from acquisition, to account servicing, through to long-term retention. Using both products, the bank is able to achieve an end-to-end digital banking transformation and market-leading cost-income ratio. The performance benefits will be seen in higher customer growth, lower cost of marketing, improved front office efficiency with increased STP rate and reduced asset write-offs with Explainable AI lending.

Temenos Infinity accelerates timeto-market for new products and deliver a seamless, multi-experience digital journey for its customers. With Temenos Infinity, Arab Investment Bank will offer a seamless digital experience to its customers across digital touchpoints for all retail banking products, reducing client onboarding to just minutes.

With its deep analytics, Temenos Infinity the leader in driving customer acquisition and digital banking engagement and enables banks to increase digital revenues 5x and cut customer onboarding time by 75%. Built on a microservices architecture, Temenos Infinity is the most open and agile SaaS product allowing banks to continuously extend and expand their solution for all or portions of the customer lifecycle.

Digital payments is also a strategic growth area for Arab Investment Bank and with Temenos Payments, the bank benefits from a truly comprehensive, universal platform for efficient payment execution and distribution – removing the need for a different system for different payment types.

Arab Investment Bank Board of Directors, stated: “Based on Arab Investment Bank strategy, we chose to partner with Temenos to lead our digital transformation, not only because it has the most advanced technology, but also for its strong presence in the region and its reputation for rapid implementation and time to value. With support from Temenos, Arab Investment Bank is on a path to becoming a worldclass digital bank. Digital channels are vital to achieving our growth goals and Temenos’ advanced technology will enable us to design and execute a holistic model to support digital acquisition, onboarding, engagement and cross-selling.”

Jean-Paul Mergeai, Managing Director – Middle-East & Africa, Temenos, commented: “Internet and mobile banking are key to unlocking economic development and financial inclusion and so Temenos is proud to support Arab Investment Bank in its bold mission to improve access to digital banking services in Egypt. The suite of Temenos products deployed by Arab Investment Bank provides an agile platform to move forward at speed with its digital ambitions. By making it easier to open a bank account, receive and make digital payments, our technology is helping Arab Investment Bank dramatically improve the lives of 44 million Egyptians who currently do not have a bank account.

Supports bank’s mission to boost economic development and financial inclusion for 44 million Egyptians

GCC Retail banking: Emerging stronger

The Gulf region has a keen eye for fintech and the initiatives being implemented in the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia point to a disruptive transformation

By Walter Sebele

As the GCC financial services sector adjusts to the new normal amid the economic fallout due to the COVID19 pandemic and low oil price while looking into the future, the retail banking landscape has undergone considerable transformation. Regional lenders must negotiate an operating environment characterized by changing customer behavior, economic headwinds, intensifying competition, regulatory pressure and technological disruption.

Moody’s projected a negative 2021 outlook for Arabian Gulf lenders and cautioned that the grim future is driven by subdued growth, prolonged business disruption due to the pandemic and fiscal consolidation that is squeezing loan quality and profitability.

However, these trends are not new to the GCC banking sector, but they have been significantly intensified by the coronavirus pandemic, said KPMG. PwC highlighted that on the digitalization front, regional banks have been investing significant sums in artificial intelligence (AI) as well as joining forces with fintechs to meet customers’ evolving demands and remain agile.

“Digital development has both enhanced personal banking and also required it to keep up with the digital developments of non-financial sectors,” said Matt Colebrook, HSBC’s Regional Head of Wealth & Personal Banking, EMEA.

Digital transformation

The Gulf region has a keen eye for fintech and the initiatives being implemented in the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia point to a disruptive transformation.

GCC banks were already at the forefront of innovation and digital transformation well before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Thought leaders see this trend continuing to dominate the banking sphere driven by changing customer needs and regulatory initiatives such as regulatory sandboxes.

Collin Dallas, the Head of Retail Banking at National Bank of Fujairah, said that just like other UAE lenders, National Bank of Fujairah is at the forefront of many of the country’s efforts to become a cashless society such as Ministry of Finance’s eDirham Instant.

In the UAE, DIFC Fintech Hive and ADGM’s FinTech Digital Lab are some of the region’s largest financial technology accelerators that are supporting FinTech, InsurTech, RegTech and Islamic FinTech startups to transform their ideas into working prototypes to accelerate the development and market introduction of digital banking products and services.

With financial technology developing rapidly, and profits, soundness indicators and asset growth remaining healthy despite the impact of COVID-19, the banking sector is well-positioned to continue leading non-oil growth and diversification in the Gulf.

The next frontier

“The ongoing pandemic crisis has helped accelerate the demand for digital banking and even customers who have traditionally been cautious in terms of digital adoption, have now started to realize the benefits of digital banking,” said Amit Malhotra, General Manager of the Personal Banking Group at Commercial Bank of Dubai.

The outbreak of the pandemic brought a whole set of challenges that the entire financial service industry was not ready for. However, COVID-19 also accelerated and further strengthened the adoption of non-cash payments channels, a trend that was already in full throttle across the GCC.

The shift to contactless payments methods across the GCC is being driven by the growth in e-commerce, governments’ smart cities initiatives, an enabling digitized banking system and a tech-savvy youthful population.

A survey conducted by Visa in partnership with Dubai Police and Dubai Economy in 2020 revealed that 49% of UAE consumers are now shopping online due to the pandemic, with three out of five (61%) now using cards or digital wallets more to make payments online instead of opting for cash.