The year 2016 is the second year of National Bank of Oman’s (NBO) hugely ambitious transformational journey to be the bank of choice in the Sultanate. The driving force throughout the first 12 months has been the customer, with every product and service innovation designed solely with the purpose of delivering an enhanced end user experience, and this remains the focus in 2016.
“As a proud Omani company, NBO is committed to serving all segments of the society, from retail customers, through to entrepreneurs and small business owners, right up to the Sultanate’s biggest corporate entities and most strategically important infrastructure projects,” says CEO, Ahmed Al Musalmi. “We are very well positioned as a bank, with strong capabilities and expertise across retail banking, investment banking, trade finance, commercial banking, corporate banking and Islamic banking.”
Clearly, a one-size-fits-all approach would never enable us to fully meet the very distinct needs of each segment, which is why we have developed strategies to attract and retain each group. Yet there are certain themes, such as the continued roll-out of the latest digital technologies that will apply to all customers in 2016. Each new innovation implemented by NBO must pass the test of bringing us closer to the customer and making their experience faster, more rewarding and more enjoyable.
Delivering great service is impossible without fully trained and motivated employees, and we will continue to strive for the best possible working environment in 2016. “Our Academy of Excellence has developed a comprehensive package of training programmes, meaning NBO employees are uniquely able to fulfil their potential and deliver for our customers,” he says.
Happy customers and engaged employees are the platform upon which we can generate strong and sustainable returns for our shareholders and invest actively in our community. In 2016, we will be particularly focused on community initiatives that help Oman’s youth to develop the skills and gain the experience needed to unlock their full potential, Ahmed adds.
So following a highly successful 12 months, NBO’s full attention is on surpassing these achievements in 2016. Over the year, NBO will continue to innovate in order to meet and exceed the needs of its customers, to support the objectives of the country, and to become the bank of choice.
Transformational journey
A year is a long time in banking. Anyone looking for proof of this statement need look no further than NBO in 2015, the first full year of our transformational journey to be the bank of choice in the Sultanate.
The roadmap for reaching this objective is easy to articulate but challenging to implement: continuous innovation of products and services to match the needs of customers. This approach was perhaps most evident in 2015 in NBO’s use of technology and the significant investments we made into our digital channels with the aim of delivering a superior customer experience across all our customer touch points. These have included the launch of a new fully-featured website, which delivered an intuitive customer-friendly experience and opened up new ways to interact digitally with the bank, as well as a mobile banking app including features like the unique EZ pay service that allows customers to transfer funds to a mobile number instead of a bank account number.
Other technological innovations also included an Augmented Reality mobile app that helps customers easily locate branches, ATM, offers and deals as they walk around a mall or street in Oman; the introduction of 3D Secure technology to enhance the online shopping experience; an innovative biometric account opening service; and a pilot project in partnership with MasterCard to bring “NBO Beam” contactless payment technology to Oman. Even the training programmes are now available digitally following the launch of @cademy 24×7, which makes learning and development available at any time and from any location to NBO employees.
Following the highly successful 2014 bond issuance, NBO attracted strong interest from global investors, with its clear strategy and strong balance sheet earning the trust and respect of the global investment community and this has enabled us to conclude a $300 mn bond issuance this year. The investor road show included several meetings with over 50 prominent investors in Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and London, producing an order book that is oversubscribed 1.8 times. The bond will help to optimise NBO’s capital structure and further strengthen its capital position relative to regional peers. NBO’s successful issuance of tier one capital instrument represents another important milestone in the bank’s ambitious five-year growth strategy to be the Sultanate’s bank of choice.
Since the first Muzn Islamic Banking window was launched in 2013, the growth and development has been tremendous. “We opened four Muzn branches in 2015 and we will continue to launch dedicated Islamic banking branches in strategic locations in order to expand Muzn’s presence across the Sultanate in the near future,” Ahmed noted.
Helping our people to reach their full potential remains a hallmark of NBO, and we were delighted that twelve Omani nationals completed the NBO graduate training programme in 2015. The bank’s commitment to support Nationalisation efforts was evident in our participation of the 5th Careers and Entrepreneurship Fair of the Colleges of Applied Sciences, and in the granting of 15 scholarships to enable Omani students from low income families to study at some of the world’s best universities. Additionally, the bank created 25 new graduate positions within the bank and gave five existing employees the opportunity to study for an MBA.
NBO understands that the talented Omani graduates of today will be the business leaders of tomorrow. Similarly, today’s small businesses have the potential to become the great companies of the future, which is why NBO heavily supports this strategically important part of the economy. In addition to providing finance and technical assistance, the bank is proud to be playing a mentoring role, for instance through our on-going partnership with the National Business Centre’s “Najihat” initiative to support female entrepreneurs.
“We also hope to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs through the hugely successful NBO Chairman’s Speaker Series. The series is a platform for inspirational leaders to share their experience, knowledge and ideas with a cross-section of Omani society.” Four events were held during the course of 2015, including talks from HE Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Mubadala, HE Mohamed Alabbar, founder and Chairman of Emaar Properties, Dr. Anousheh Ansari, one of the few female space pioneers, and Dr. Paul Achleitner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank.
The Bank also used its expertise and financial strength in 2015 to support other strategically important sectors of the economy and contribute to the country’s economic diversification objectives. NBO acted as Joint Lead Manager in the $125mn bond issuance of Renaissance Group, and provided $116 mn in financing to enable Dalma Energy to deliver five rigs to Petroleum Development Oman. NBO reinforced its support of the real estate sector through a new partnership with the Oman Real Estate Association, and added impetus to Oman’s travel and tourism sector by signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Tourism to extend support to SMEs in this all-important sector and, of course, our work to position Oman as a major sporting destination through our involvement with the NBO Golf Classic Grand Final.
Throughout 2015, NBO never lost sight of its wider responsibility to society. It organised the Iftar Sa’im initiative, which distributed food hampers to underprivileged families across the Sultanate. We launched the ‘Innovation in SME awards’ initiative earlier this year, to inspire the conceptualisation and development of new business ideas amongst the Omani youth and to encourage the transformation of these ideas into SMEs with robust and sustainable business plans and strategies. We launched the first women’s golf programme at Muscat Hills, supported the National Cancer Association, the Association of Early Intervention and the Environment Society of Oman’s initiatives to spread awareness on critical issues impacting our society. We were also delighted to kick-off the 45th National Day celebrations with a first-of-its-kind parade bringing together a cross-section of society in Muscat, while our Muzn Islamic banking window proudly supported the Wilayat Al Seeb Quran Recital Competition, which brought together young students from 55 local schools.
“We continue to extend our support to local Omani talent, who are promoting Oman to a global audience, including our Brand Ambassador and local star Ahmad Al Harthy, who has been receiving international acclaim, we sponsored the local biker Maher Al Barwani’s transcontinental journey, which had achieved widespread media coverage, and we had created a special golfing tournament for our local amateur golfers to give them the opportunity to play with global professional golf players at the NBO Golf Classic event this year,” says Ahmed.
“I am delighted to say that the success of NBO’s transformational journey has not gone unnoticed. In 2015, the bank was proud to be named the ‘Bank of the Year’ by the Banker Magazine – Financial Times, and the Sultanate’s top bank in the latest Business Today–Ernst & Young survey, which is considered the most comprehensive assessment of Omani banking and non-banking financial services companies. We also took home awards at the Customer Experience Benchmarking Index awards, Mena Fund Manager Performance Awards 2015, Third Annual Middle East and Africa Awards Ceremony, and Banker Middle East Oman Product Awards 2015,” Ahmed adds.
Yet NBO is a bank that always looks towards the future and the next stage of our journey will include a new state-of-the-art head office in Al Athaibah. When it opens in 2017, the 50,000 square metre facility will enable the bank to reach even greater heights. NBO will continue to innovate in order to meet and exceed the needs of its customers, to support the objectives of the country, and to become the bank of choice.