Dubai: IBM Consulting has been picked by Abu Dhabi mega-bank FAB to oversee its digital platform's move into a hybrid cloud environment. The First Abu Dhabi Bank recently kicked off an all-encompassing digital transformation, which will see it deliver more such services to clients. For IBM Consulting, this extends an already established relationship with FAB.
“We believe that leading organizations are becoming ‘virtual enterprises’ enabled by hybrid cloud and AI,” said Christian Noll, Managing Partner for IBM Consulting in the Middle East and Africa. “Transforming enterprises demands open innovation and expanded business value.
That’s hybrid cloud - and enterprises must continue to expand ecosystems supported by open platforms. Clients want a vendor-agnostic solution that works with the entire range of their existing IT infrastructures, allowing them to develop once and deploy anywhere.
“The banking and financial markets industries face several key challenges as executives seek to drive improved financial performance while responding to new competition and accelerated digital adaptation. Financial institutions must accelerate the migration to a new business architecture focused on changed customer consumption models, applying analytical and AI tools against an expanding data pool.”
The value and the tenure of the IBM Consulting’s project has not been divulged. Banks are rushing to create ‘cloud-native development environments’. According to the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), 71 per cent of banks in the UAE have already realized substantial value from updating business processes and applications.
"IBM has been essential in our services’ delivery for the past years, and this agreement maintains our relationship to allow us to continue innovating and transforming the way we interact with our customers," said Srinivasan Sampath, Acting Group Chief Technology Officer, First Abu Dhabi Bank.
FAB's digital transformation helps with delivering new-gen retail banking products and services. The bank, with Dh1 trillion in assets, has already introduced a range of digital banking services.
"IBM is moving aggressively to tap this massive market," Christian Noll at IBM Consulting. "To drive this strategy forward, we are heavily investing in new engines for growth, and that include elevating our ecosystem of partners. Over the past years, as we’re sharpening our focus on hybrid cloud and AI, we doubled down to enable and grow our ecosystem of partners."
