Embracing A New World
Jean-Christophe Durand, CEO of the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB), discusses how the bank is embracing a digital world and supporting its customers and people through the pandemic.
What attributes have made NBB one of the top banks in the Middle East? NBB prides itself on serving the national economy across all segments and being at the forefront of innovation in the financial sector in line with Bahrain’s vision. This has resulted in significant investments in our digital capabilities to facilitate our clients’ transactions and access to services in a fast-moving digitalizing economy. It is also illustrated by the leading role NBB plays in strategic transactions at the country level. We place the customers at the core of our business strategy, we listen to their requirements and design solutions that are relevant and fulfil their current and future needs.
Changes triggered or accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis are forcing banks globally to reassess traditional products, strategies, and business models. What post-pandemic strategies has NBB put into place to address this?
The pandemic has definitely forced banks and other businesses to adjust their strategic approach across the region and beyond. At NBB this unprecedented situation further accelerated one of our strategic directions, which we had already been working on for a few years, namely digital transformation. We have been building robust and state of the art digital platforms in order to continuously improve the delivery of our banking services and enable more customer convenience and accessibility. We have strengthened our presence in the region’s financial ecosystem and reinforced our position as a banking partner of choice for high-growth sectors and for sectors which have a strong impact on the local economies.
A virtual environment requires different ways of building and maintaining customer relationships. What innovations has NBB brought in retail banking to help retain customers?
Our digital evolution has set new standards in digital banking services with direct value to customers. We have invested in state-ofthe-art technologies to upgrade our conventional offerings, and elevate the customer experience through improved accessibility and enhanced branch capability.
We have invested in technologies to make banking more accessible and convenient for our customers by empowering them with more transparency over their financial standing and transactions while giving them complete control over their data.
Some of our latest initiatives have focused on automating daily banking processes like the nation-wide “Tap & Go” contactless payments to encourage cashless transactions. More recently, in a bid to further simplify the customer journey, we unveiled our new one-stop-digital-shop mobile application.
How is the bank focusing on monitoring, managing and curating a culture by design?
We firmly believe that our progress is driven by our people. We invest in cultivating a strong NBB Team spirit, which fuels a shared passion for business success. Our culture is founded on teamwork, mutual respect and appreciation, and inspired by a strong sense of pride and belonging. We continuously monitor our performance in this respect through focus groups and periodic surveys. We have launched a series of training and development initiatives to empower our people and prepare and align them with the fast-changing banking environment.