Success of Middle East Banking Innovation Summit

The new age innovations in banking and the factors that are shaping the banking technology landscape in the region were brought to the fore at the Middle East Banking Innovation Summit that was held on 5-6 September at Palazzo Versace, Dubai. Organized by global conference producers, Expotrade Middle East, the summit witnessed over 20 speakers share insights on pressing topics and more than 450 senior bankers and leading industry practitioners attend the summit.

The summit opened with a welcome address from Naveed Minhas, Banking Industry Leader, MEA and Turkey, Global Business Services, IBM, Lead Sponsor of the event followed by Przemyslaw Bogusz, Financial Services Sector Manager, Comarch Middle East, Platinum Sponsor of the event.

ADIB’s Chief Operating Officer, Sagheer Mufti delivered a keynote address on Business Continuity program wherein he shared insights on the key elements of a business continuity program i.e, scalability, security, reliability and usability.

IBM’s Naveed Minhas’ presentation focused on the use of analytics at Wimbledon by IBM to drive a radically engaging customer experience and the lessons that banking can learn from it. This was followed by a session by Pedro Cardoso of Emirates NBD who spoke of the need to introduce solutions that match with the market’s needs and the new service offerings from the bank. He further emphasized upon the key trends affecting the banking industry including big data and analytics, cloud services, P2P payments, IoT, biometrics and security among many other factors.

Covering a broad spectrum of topics, the summit saw leading experts in banking, finance and technology sectors from the Middle East region delve deep in topics that focused on enhancing the corporate banking experience; banking in the cognitive era; build applications for other systems, not humans and driving customer engagement in the digital economy.

The summit also witnessed industry leaders Praveen Bangera, Mashreq; Marwan Elnakat, Gemalto along with Sudhesh Giriyan, Xpress Money participate in an interactive panel discussion on getting ready for eBanking and eCommerce digital transformation. With interesting data points, the panel discussion highlighted factors integral to a seamless and secure digital experience.

The second day of the summit began with a session by Siamak Amirghodsi of OCC on blockchain, digital currencies and the future of banking in 21st century followed by a presentation on developing security strategy for the digital age by Banque Saudi Fransi’s Roshdi Osman.

Gokhan Alakus of FGB delivered a session on how to know your customer (KYC) & exceed expectations, followed by a panel discussion on how banks can modernize and mobilize financial services without compromising security. The summit closed with yet another panel discussion that explored the power of technology and what the future has in store for the Middle Eastern banking industry with panelists from Comarch Middle East, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, IBM Middle East and OCC actively participating in the discussion.

Over 20 leading technology providers including IBM, Comarch, PinPay, IMTF, Gemalto, VMWare, ApPello, Xpress Money, Pennant Technologies, Wacom, to name a few showcased their marquee products and solutions.

The summit concluded successfully with Arvind Datta, Vice President – Credit, Dubai First, the consumer financial services business, commenting, “The conference has been a good platform to share insights into what is changing in the financial services arena. Some of the presentations were very informative.”

Mohammed Walid, Business Development Manager, Wacom, said, “The event handed an ample amount of opportunity to exchange dialogue with valuable prospects in order to expand our business in U.A.E and other close proximity regions.”

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Read the September 2016 issue of Business Review Middle East magazine