United Arab Bank has selected Finastra’s Fusion Corporate Channels and Fusion Cash Management products to strengthen its corporate offering and help attract more customers. It is also upgrading to the latest version of Fusion Equation, Finastra’s core banking solution, to offer an improved digital experience to its retail customers.
The solutions are helping the UAE-based bank become more competitive, streamline internal processes and, in turn, generate additional revenue streams.
Ahmad Abu Eideh, CEO at United Arab Bank, said: “Customer expectations have changed drastically over the past few years and banking customers are no different. They expect their bank to offer a digital experience similar to the ones they are seeing in other areas of their lives. United Arab Bank is working on delivering this level of service to all its clients – both retail and corporate.
“By investing in agile technologies like Finastra’s, we’re making sure our business is more attractive and more competitive in the long run.”
Fusion Corporate Channels and Fusion Cash Management will provide a much improved, functionality-rich experience for corporate users and treasurers to effectively manage cashflows, unifying trade, supply chain finance, cash, lending and treasury services for corporate clients.
The solutions will be integrated with Fusion Equation under a single portal, providing better services and improving the entire customer experience. The upgrade and integration will be managed through Fusion Advance, Finastra’s dedicated upgrade management programme, powered by Finastra Global Services.
Serge Tohme, Managing Director, MENA and Turkey at Finastra, said: “The Middle East, and the UAE specifically, is seeing a sharp rise in the number of neobanks and challengers that are offering services to retail and corporate customers alike. It’s crucial that traditional banks reinvent themselves and the customer experience to remain relevant.
“For this, they need applications that are agile so that they can adapt quickly in line with changing trends and regulations. Our solutions will enable banks like United Arab Bank to offer enhanced services to all their customers, helping them become more competitive and increase their market share.”
Intelligent CIO asked Ahmad Abu Eideh, CEO at United Arab Bank, further questions about the solutions.
Please highlight the specific benefits offered by Finastra’s Fusion Corporate Channels and Fusion Cash Management products.
Fusion Corporate Channels will provide us with a single, self-service client portal and consistent online experience that will help us reinforce customer relationships, analyse transactional behaviour and derive greater value from customers. Eventually, we will be able to realise new opportunities for growth in global transaction banking.
Fusion Cash Management offers a suite of solutions to optimise our cash flow, manage payments, provide treasury services, send and receive financial messages, automate payables and receivables, and accommodate channel access in a cost-effective, secure, operationally efficient and reliable way. It provides a single, scalable view into cash and liquidity management functions, and enables us to provide the working capital optimisation features corporate treasuries need to effectively manage cash flow.
What benefits will you receive from upgrading to the latest version of Fusion Equation?
Fusion Equation is an ideal core banking system for United Arab Bank. The latest update will allow us to grow revenues by launching new products quickly through reusable processes and services. We can tailor processes to our requirements using a standard mechanism that ensures easy internal rollout, as well as consistent and efficient interaction with customers.
We will be able to respond rapidly to changing market demands byusing the new Workbench development tool to auto-generate Java code and ensure compliance with Fusion Equation’s tried and tested development standards. We canincrease user productivity and reduce operational costs by automating processes and reducing manual steps that lead to errors. We will also reduce development, integration and support costs by standardising and automating these tasks.
The latest version uses Fusion Equation to deliver Java (JEE) re-usable components. This gives us up-to-date technology with unique flexibility and strongly positions Fusion Equation as the foundation for a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment. This architecture means we can deliver standardised products efficiently and add new capabilities without expensive or complex integration challenges.
What are the benefits of having the solutions integrated with Fusion Equation under a single portal?
Delivery in a single platform will enable our customers to automate payables and receivables, gain real-time cash position visibility and leverage automated delivery tools for balance and information reporting. For those firms wanting additional cash management capabilities, fully integrated add-on modules, it provides additional functionality to support activities such as managing corporate liquidity, facilitating supply chain financing and efficiently capturing remote deposit transactions.
Fusion Cash Management offers omnichannel solutions in a multi-tier functional approach designed to address the growing ubiquity of faster, modern payments with integrated liquidity management tools and trade-focused capabilities for those companies focused on global growth and trade.
How will your retail and corporate customers benefit from the solutions?
Our retail customers will benefit from improved products and services, and higher levels of customer service due to improved analytics and insights.
For our corporate customers, a consolidated view across multiple institutions, accounts and currencies allows corporate treasurers to simplify cash management and more accurately forecast cash flow. Using the liquidity management module, we can help our corporate customers to improve their business operations and centralise liquidity management for the more effective management of foreign exchange and interest rates which will ultimately maximise revenues and minimise risks.
How will the solutions help the bank generate additional revenue streams?
We will be able to effectively identify and focus on more profitable customers and better target products to the right customers. We will also be able to grow our share of customers through new chargeable services, generate new business with better products and services and bring new products to market more quickly.
How are the solutions helping United Arab Bank remain competitive?
We are able to dramatically improve our service proposition for corporates, reduce costs and operational risk and use insights gained from advanced analytics to improve products, price them more effectively and better understand our customers’ needs.
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