Boubyan receives ‘Best Islamic Digital Bank Award Worldwide’
The Best in the world alongside Citi Bank
KUWAIT: Boubyan Bank continues to make new achievements in the digital banking domain by winning the Best Islamic Digital Bank Award for the third year in a row from Global Finance in addition to receiving the award for the Best Islamic Digital Bank in Kuwait.
Dr Waleed Eisa AlHasawi, General Manager Information Technology Group, received both awards in a grand ceremony held in London in the presence of a great number of representatives of international banks, many of whom praised the achievements made by Boubyan Bank over the past years.
Abdulla Al-Najran AlTuwaijri, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, stated that the significance of that achievement was the placement of Boubyan Bank, an Arab and Islamic bank, among the great banks, which was a new achievement for Kuwaiti banks.
Global Finance has already named the list of winning banks worldwide which included Boubyan Bank alongside Citi Bank.
Al-Tuwaijri added: “The most prominent aspect of this award is that it comes from a global institution renowned for its impartiality and credibility, and this crowns our efforts over the past years where we invested in the fields of IT and digital banking services.”
“Boubyan was one of a few banks in the region, and may be in the world, to satisfy the conditions for entering into the competition to win the prize as all the criteria set by Global Finance were met by Boubyan Bank’s experience over the past years.”, he added.
Why Boubyan Is Among the Best Worldwide?
In its report, Global Finance referred to its selection criteria set by a world-class panel of judges, which are as follows:
• Strength of strategy set by the bank for attracting and servicing digital customers,
• Success in getting clients to use digital offerings,
• Growth of digital customers who use digital banking services throughout all channels whether online or via smart phones,
• Innovation in providing banking and non-banking services via electronic channels.
As per Global Finance, many Islamic banks were shortlisted for the Best Islamic Digital Bank Award, however, the panel of judges selected Boubyan Bank as the Best Islamic Bank Worldwide.
Digital Clients Base
Dr Waleed Eisa Al-Hasawi, General Manager Information Technology Group, stated: “The past years have witnessed an unprecedented increase in Boubyan clients’ base for clients who use our digital banking solutions whether online of via Boubyan mobile banking App.”
“The most prominent challenges that faced Boubyan Bank was returning to the basics of banking, which necessitated re-planning and building of special infrastructure for customer service, whether for retail or corporate customers, and this required more investments in the development of the bank’s network of services.”, he stated.
Dr Al-Hasawi further added: “This has been linked with the huge growth of the number of our customers and, accordingly, the number of banking transactions completed through all our channels which has multiplied over the past years compared with the moderate growth rates for other banks. This is considered another challenge coupled with the other challenges faced by the bank.”
He went on to add that the executive management was well aware of such challenges and that was the reason why they decided to invest heavily in the various banking channels in order to keep up with the developments witnessed by both the services and products.
New achievement for Kuwaiti banks
He also stated that Boubyan’s leadership in the banking industry over the past years was achieved through offering many banking services and products for the first time in Kuwait where the phrase “for the first time in Kuwait” became a synonym of the digital achievements made by Boubyan Bank.