The impact of the new digital innovation era on the retail banking

During recent years the Middle East region has seen significant advances in retail banking especially in the use of alternative channels. Banks in Egypt have realized the need to become more customer centric by offering enhanced customer service and a more diversified product portfolio. Egyptian banks are leveraging on digital innovations to further service their customer base and to work towards greater financial inclusion across Egypt.

In Egypt there is still a significant need for retail banks to increase their physical footprint therefore banks have begun to introduce new future branch designs and introduce Instant Teller Machines across the country. Many of the larger banks with extensive branch networks are renovating their branches with upgraded technology in order to be seen an innovative market leader. Banks are expanding both their physical footprint alongside their product portfolios with an increasing number of loan options available. In addition, banks are working with the government to implement easier processing of salaried accounts in order to eliminate the need for salaries to be paid by cash or check. Banks have unscaled their technology infrastructure in order to meeting the needs of the growing retail and SME customer.

Digital banking remain a hot topic in Egypt as the banks have invested heavily in this area the last six months of 2015. However despite the heavy investment in digital only 28.5% of Egyptian banks are providing mobile applications to their customer’s. The Central bank of Egypt is currently reviewing digital banking as the market has not clearly shown how clients will access and utilize technology for banking and therefore have limited the number of mobile banking license available in the marketplace. Meanwhile banks in Egypt will work on improving theircustomer-relationship management CRM platforms in order to enable them to have a 360 degree view of the customer. This will enable chances of cross sell while deepening the client wallet share. Also, more emphasis will be placed on the client relationship rather than their transactional accounts.

The Asian Banker will be organising the first annual Retail Banking Dialogue in Cairo, Egypt to discuss key trends and challenges faced by decision makers in Egypt retail banking landscape

The dialogue will be supported by in-depth research from The Asian Banker

This dialogue will focus broadly on the following goals:

• Banks evolving to become customer oriented rather than product oriented
• Enhancing technology platforms to meet the demands of a digital strategy
• Applying mobile applications & online banking on a wider range
• Simplifying processes for reduced manual intervention and quicker turnaround time