Muscat: The fifth edition of New Age Banking Summit Oman, supported by Oman Banks Association, drew a good response from the banking industry and fintech sectors.

His Excellency Tahir Salim Al Amri, Executive President, Central Bank of Oman was the Chief Guest at the event held on 6th October at Hotel Sheraton Oman. The physical event was attended by a select number of industry leaders and over 350 strong audience watched and participated in the event on Zoom.

The event was organized by UMS Events, the live platforms arm of United Media Services.

In his keynote address, His Excellency Tahir Salim Al Amri emphasized on CBO’s role in facilitating the growth of fintech, encourage electronic payments, risk management controls and customer protection.

Talking about the new initiatives in payments, he said, “The wholesale payment system, namely, the Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), is in an advanced stage of upgrade and will be up and running 24×7 by the first half of 2021. This will make Oman the first country in the Arab Gulf region to operate the RTGS 24×7. It will help businesses to make high-value payments round the clock, which will greatly help the payment system participants manage their funds efficiently.”

In a separate presentation in the Summit, Ali Hassan Moosa, CEO of Oman Banks Association reflected on the need for the banks to gear up for the changes at an accelerated pace with the growing popularity of open banking, instant P2P payments, cashless multicurrency exchanges, behaviour based personalised offers, super e-wallet that works across borders and blockchain based contracts, etc.

The Summit also hosted a panel discussion titled ‘The Age of Collaboration to Drive Innovation and Transformation’. The panel comprising the well-known industry leaders from banking, finance, investment, insurance and technology sectors debated on various aspects related to the great reset for the financial services sector due to Covid-19 related challenges and how banks are adapting to the changing technology landscape. The panelists included Khalid Al Kayed CEO of Bank Nizwa; Sanjay Kawatra, Group President – Regional Business and COO of OMINVEST Group; Eng. Maqbool Al Wahaibi, CEO of Oman Data Park; Eddy Abboud, CEO of GBM Oman; and Sunil Kohli, CEO of Dhofar Insurance. The panel discussion was moderated by Ali Hassan Moosa.

The Summit was a unique platform for the banking and finance professionals to discuss the new developments in global banking and debate on the focus areas for Omani banks. The event hosted a line-up of speakers from Omani and global/regional organisations including the Central Bank of Oman, Mastercard, Oman Arab Bank, National Bank of Oman, Oman Data Park, Bahwan CyberTek and PayMate.

The deliberations helped the audience gain expert insights on disruptive technologies, global banking trends and new age customer needs, and an opportunity to network with industry peers and banking solution providers. Featuring sessions on Banking as a Service (BaaS), Agile, Banking as a Platform (BaaP), Open Banking and Payment Settlement, the event stressed on driving efficiency across various channels for better monetization as well as the need to be in line with regulatory norms while embracing digitization.

Oman Data Park was the Cloud Services Partner for the event. PayMate was the Support Partner. Ubhar Capital was the Knowledge Partner.

Oman Banking & Finance Awards 2020 was also co-located with the New Age Banking Summit. The best performing banking, leasing, insurance and fintech companies were felicitated in the Awards, powered by Oman Economic Review (OER).

Overall, 13 awards including the special awards were presented during the ceremony. Bank Muscat won the overall Best Bank award in the large banks category. Ahli Bank was presented with the overall Best Bank award in the mid size banks category. Sohar International was presented the award for Best Bank (Large Size Banks) in Growth.

Bank Nizwa walked away with the Best Islamic Bank award. Oman Arab Bank was presented the Leadership in Agile Banking award and Bank Dhofar was presented the Three Decades of Excellence in Banking award.

The Excellence in Investments award was presented to OMINVEST whereas Excellence in Insurance award was presented to Dhofar Insurance. On the leasing side, Taageer Finance was presented with the Best Non-Banking Finance Company award. Oman Data Park was presented with the Industry Leadership in Virtual Datacenters award.

In addition, three personality awards were also presented. S. Durgaprasad, Cofounder, Director & Group CEO of Bahwan CyberTek Group was presented with the Lifetime Achievement in Technology award. Khaled Al Kayed of Bank Nizwa, was felicitated with the Islamic Banker of the Year award. Ahmed Jafar Al Musalmi, CEO of Sohar International received the CEO of the Year in Banking award.

The winners were selected based on a survey of banks and NBFCs done by OER and Ubhar Capital; the results were verified by Abu Timam Grant Thornton. The survey was based on the banks and NBFCs financial performance on various parameters over the last four years. The winners of special awards were selected by the editorial board of OER.