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KUWAIT: Group Chief Retail and Private Banking Officer at Kuwait Finance house (KFH), Waleed Khaled Mandani said the Bank is continuing its efforts to provide a digital experience for a new generation of customers, providing a digital banking platform that is intuitive and simple to use, indicating customer experience will continue to evolve and Banks need to keep their fingers on the pulse and adapt to the changing needs of customers and the market.
Mandani’s statement was made during his keynote speech at ArabNet Kuwait 2018 forum held at AlRaya Ballroom to explore trends in financial technology “Fintech” and the transformations created by big data, blockchain, Artificial Intelligence “AI” and the practical opportunities available for banks and financial services providers.
He added: “We have been particularly busy in the past year over all fronts: with Artificial Intelligence, we launched two major initiatives: Robotics Process Automation with Ernst & Young and AI-powered Chatbot with Microsoft Azure. With Blockchain, KFH initiated a landmark agreement with RippleNet for remittance services, and the first in Kuwait successful PILOT transaction conducted recently, in addition to other initiatives to be announced soon leveraging Blockchain technology. With Payments, KFH launched first combined Visa - Mastercard wallet in the region, Visa Checkout - first in Kuwait - card-on-file solution to simplify the checkout experience, and Centralized SWIFT network across KFH Group. With Digitization, KFH launched a branch-in-a-box technology XTM to provide round the clock service to customers, with live video interactions and transactions. Also, KFH Bahrain launched Jazeel platform that enables customers to open a banking account within minutes without visiting branches.”
Mandani reflect on the challenges ahead explaining that technology is no longer the issue: the future is here but it is unevenly distributed. He pointed out that the real issue is on finding the agility in banking in adopting the new technologies through a radical change of mindsets and skillsets in the organization, and through creating the right internal structure and infrastructure to partner successfully with Fintechs. He reiterated that customer experience continues to be the primary force behind most of the changes we are witnessing. The standards keep getting higher so that we need to continue coping with the global customer-obsessed institutions such as Apples, Google, and Amazon etc.
He said: “In parallel, we continue to see several trends unfolding locally, regionally, and even globally: The First trend is Regulation, where the Central Bank of Kuwait issues the regulation for Electronic Payments to put much-needed discipline in the payments world. We have also seen regional regulation come out regulating token sales, Telco/banking licensing, wallets, etc... the regulatory scene continues to be very dynamic and very pivotal in determining the direction of the markets and more importantly in protecting consumers from loose technologies. This builds more trust and confidence in digital technology. The second trend is Digitization: Today, we see digital go deeper within organizations into the strongholds of operations, compliance, and other back-office functions.
The third trend is Artificial Intelligence (AI): not just with robots winning chess or “Go” games against humans, but in artificial intelligence starting to take a large role in the everyday tasks of work, not in factory lines but in banks, front-office and back-office.
The fourth trend is Blockchain: not bitcoin, not litecoin, not monero... but true “Distributed Ledger Technology”... in the past year, we have seen distributed apps, blockchain cases applied to storage, remittance, and many other exotic applications. As this technology gains more understanding of users, banks and regulators, the implementations are starting to emerge globally.
Mandani said that the last but not least trend is Payments which is much closer to consumers’ everyday life, saying “we have seen significant developments in the payment space, with Contactless and NFC solidly growing in Kuwait, Tokenization becoming a standard topic in payment discussions, Apple Pay coming to the region, and hopefully soon to Kuwait and other markets in the GCC, Combined and converged wallets launched by the local banks, not to mention the Wearable experiments. Mandani said that ArabNet forum is very significant because it forces us to take a step back and have a wider look at where we stand in our constantly changing world, and it is only in such moments that we realize how truly fast our world is changing, and how many forces are shaping the banking world.
It is worth noting that Arab Net is one of the biggest and most targeted to tech startups. It brings together top investors, and other potential partners working in the same industry in addition to entrepreneurs and financial experts.