KFH’s Srood Sherif on the future of banking

Kuwait Times got an inside look at the latest technological happenings and trends transforming our world during the DELL/EMC World global conference which took place in Las Vegas from May 8-11. Over the coming days, we’ll be providing an in-depth look at all the new announcements during the event. Here, Kuwait Times got in touch with Srood Sherif, the Chief Information Officer for Kuwait Finance House. He spoke about the recent hacking attempt that plagued Kuwait’s financial institutions, digitizing the customer experience and the future of banking.

KT: Where do you see mobile banking a couple years down the line? How do you see customer integration and experience improving

Sherif: We are working on several initiatives, mobile banking is obviously going to progress. For example we are working on depositing cash cheques directly from your mobile device. In our subsidiary in Malaysia we are implementing a new mobile banking system and we are doing the same in Bahrain with internet banking. The world is only going to be more mobile and as I mentioned earlier at the press conference, it’s best for companies to stay up-to-date with technology rather than playing catch up or being left behind.

KT: So how advanced do you think mobile banking will get? Do you think we will eventually customers won’t even have to go the bank?

Sherif: Most definitely. Realistically, some customers will still be more comfortable communicating their needs to a person rather than a machine. When you look back to when ATMs first came out, their pickup rate was a bit slow. But now everybody understands how it works and even takes it complexities for granted as they expect the machine to be there and for them to receive their money.

Five years from now, nobody can accurately say what technologies will come up. Things move in a monthly basis from a technology point of view. So I’m sure mobile banking will slowly take more customers out of the branches and that’s why we are embarking on a digital transformation for the group as a whole. So that we can get it and provide for our customers

just as they are looking for something to satisfy their mobile banking needs.

KT: During the press conference you brought up the recent hacking attempt on several of Kuwait’s major banks, as CIO what do you think KFH and other financial institutions learnt from that event?

Sherif: After the hack, many of them had actually come to us (KFH) to ask for advice because we were the least affected by the attempt. One of the main precautions we took was moving the SOC (Security Operations Centre) into a 24x7 operation and we began actively monitoring our subsidiaries in Malaysia, Turkey and Bahrain to have all the latest tools. We also get specialists to provide ‘health checks’ on our systems on regular basis and we changed the provider and went for DELL Secure Works. For us, it’s always better to have a third eye rather than be 100% happy with what you already have. I’m sure all the banks are doing the same.

The Central Bank had taken initiative after the hacking and actually called all the CIOs and had a cybersecurity assessment. They brought in some consultants and to decide the security framework for which all banks have to follow. This is sure to improve the all-round security features in every bank around the country. KT: Finally, can you tell us about your experience with DELL/EMC?

My experience with EMC has been quite long, I believe I worked with them for 17 years. My work experience with DELL on the other hand is quite new as I came on board after the acquisition. EMC was known for customer focus and CEO Michael Dell has proved time and again that he too is heavily focused on the needs of the customers. He actually came and visited us concerning the MENA region just a few weeks ago.

With that perspective, we went on with a major assignment which Central Bank had mandated. It was a CCTV project and we got 450 DELL servers, 12 petabytes of DELL storage and at the same time we used our own Isilon storage platform which is also part of the DELL/EMC project. So far it’s been very positive. I can speak for my company and say we are quite happy with relationship and optimistically look forward to developing and continuing it in the future.