Mashreq's extraordinary technology innovation

Alexander Raiff, Co-Founder, Digital in Health

Alexander Raiff, Co-Founder, Digital in Health

We are living in an era of rapid technological advancement and revolution with advanced automation, artificial intelligence, crypto-currencies, and deep learning that will reshape our world. Accelerated by the pandemic, we’ve seen a fundamental shift especially in how entities do business owing to the adoption of digital processes. As a bank we pride ourselves in how we relentlessly cater to our customers and always stay on our toes, and in fact, stay several steps ahead of the curve, ready to adopt and adapt ourselves to new technologies and trends. This requires a persistent pursuit of learning and innovation.

A recent market report noted that the global financial technology market is expected to grow to $324 bn in just 4 years, growing at a compound annual rate of 25.18%, showing a clear need for technology innovation.

Mashreq’s digital revolution started nearly a decade ago, and we’ve since invested heavily in digitizing processes, adopting cloud-based technologies, and most importantly, in the setting up of global centres of excellence where we can focus on driving innovation. We keep customers at the centre of everything we do and to ensure that their journey with us is as seamless and comfortable as possible, it is our aim to become a data-driven organisation that is steeped in technology at every level of operation.

Embracing The Digital Workforce and Solutions

We see emerging technology like metaverse adoption, distributed ledger technology, quantum computing, biometrics, and more as the drivers of evolution in the banking industry. These technologies are still in their nascent stages right now, but we’re expecting at least some of them to take centre-stage by 2030. These are technologies we have already adopted and are experimenting with at various level. Biometrics, for example, has already been integrated into many of our services. Cloud computing forms our digital backbone, and AI/ML is driving decision-making in many sectors.

We’re also helping businesses embrace new technologies as a means of reaching out, retaining, and expanding customer portfolio.

These include helping them set up omnichannel platforms that integrate all digital platforms, encompass digital finance to support the digital economy, and hyper personalised banking that uses customer insights to design bespoke services that help us serve them nothing but the best.

Customer experience coupled with technology

Key to our agility and ability to serve customers is our investment towards end-to-end digitalisation of all processes. This allowed our customers to bank with ease even at the height of the pandemic and allowed our employees to remain productive and work through all disruptions caused by it. Our aim is to always harness new technology so that we can reinvent the customer experience. Streamlining and simplifying internal processes allows us to do that by helping us stay sharp and responsive. We can spend more time listening and adapting to our customers’ needs than in figuring out the how.

Our plan of action and way forward

To be a data-driven organisation we need to competently leverage AI and analytics tools. We’re working towards that by upgrading our technology stack to create an open, modular, and scalable architecture which will form the basis for any future products or services that we may develop. By delivering a singular, platform-driven business environment that is entirely digital, Mashreq will further enhance the focus towards the digital ecosystem, partnerships, and next generation capabilities across all segments.

We’re Working Towards Building a Platform Banking System to Integrate Virtually Every Product and Service that Mashreq Offers, Vastly Simplifying the Experience for Our Customers

We’re working towards building a platform banking system with the aim to integrate virtually every product and service that Mashreq offers, vastly simplifying the experience for our customers. With the use of technologies such as AI and ML, we will personalise the products and services offered to our customers. In effect, we’re giving them access to a more powerful, personalised experience.

Mashreq Neo, a branch-less, fully digital bank is another very well received step in that direction. We’ve also pivoted our UI/UX design work to a mobile first approach. Mobiles are the primary banking channels for our customers, after all. Supporting these efforts is, of course, the adoption of cloud storage and cloud computing. We also aim to adopt hybrid-cloud setups and cloud technology to leverage the possibilities provided by different types of cloud, technology, and service providers which will give us more flexibility and ease the adoption of managed service models. We feel that this design is well suited for today’s connected generation. It enables us to offer them speedy, interactive resolution and hassle-free access to the services they need.

All our efforts, these past few years, have been geared towards building a solid digital foundation on which Mashreq will build its future. We are a digital-first, future ready bank, after all, and thanks to our entrepreneurial spirit, will always strive to remain at the cutting edge of technology innovation.