Finastra helps Union of Arab Banks to accelerate digital banking

By Elly Yates-Roberts on 24 March 2022

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Financial software company Finastra has partnered with Union of Arab Banks (UAB) to accelerate digital banking. The organisations will co-develop a model digital bank to help UAB members provide new digital services.

The model digital bank will help to address resource management challenges by providing a shared ecosystem of assets that allows a group of banks to invest in the same solution. It will be connected by Finastra’s open development and innovation platform, FusionFabric.cloud. To date, it has received interest from 35 banks.

“Building a truly digital bank can be time consuming and costly for many of our member banks,” said Suleiman Barada, head of UABdigital, a subsidiary of UAB. “With Finastra, we’ve identified a need to simplify this undertaking to help accelerate the pace of digital transformation for banks across the Arab states. This will enable them to meet the expectations of their customers now and for the next generation.

“Based on a mutual focus around open banking and digital transformation, our collaboration with Finastra will help our members to remain competitive. We intend to work closely with regulators to ensure compliance by design, helping to expedite adoption.”

The model digital bank will allow banks to use the functionalities they need and build integration layers on top for localisation, customisation and regional compliance. It is also designed to support the fulfilment of several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

“The Union of Arab Banks plays an essential role in the Arab financial and banking community by fostering collaboration and keeping up with the latest innovation trends,” said Ahmed Khalifa, director of partners and ecosystem MEA at Finastra. “Combined with our expertise in open banking, banking-as-a-service and our open platform, FusionFabric.cloud, as well as our significant global and regional customer footprint, we believe that together we can help banks to offer innovative banking services, with agility and speed. We are excited to work with the UAB to roll out a model digital bank for the Arab banking community.”