GCC New Age Banking Summit 2016, held on 23 May, drew a good response from the banking industry and allied sectors. Highness Sayyid Taimur bin Asad Al Said was the Guest of Honour and His Excellency Hamood Sangour Al Zadjali, Executive President, Central Bank of Oman (CBO) was the Chief Guest and Keynote Speaker at the event organized by UMS Conferences. Bank Muscat was the Official Banking Partner and GBM was the Technology Partner for the first-of-its-kind summit in Oman. Bank Sohar and Oman Data Park were the Supporting Sponsors. Oman Air was the official Airline Partner.
While delivering his keynote address, H.E. Hamood Sangour Al Zadjali stressed on the importance of new and innovative technologies in meeting the needs of new age customers and balancing them with control, risk management and compliance. He further said, “The banks in Oman are spending good time, money and efforts in technological innovations; new and advanced modes of service delivery are constantly introduced. CBO has been conveying its expectation of prudent growth meeting the needs of the society and looks forward to continued growth of banking industry consistent with real economy. I am sure that the Omani banking sector will continue to display utmost compliance not only with regulatory requirements but also meeting public expectations. Events like this Summit will assist in bridging the gap between expectations and performance on one hand and performance and risk management on the other.”
While delivering his opening remarks, Asad Batla, Head of Consumer Banking in Bank Nizwa and the Chairman of the Summit, said: “With the exponential growth of smartphones and new technologies, the way we do things has changed and banks have to embrace digital landscape to deliver better banking experience through better customer engagement, mobile apps, digital payments, big data analysis and partnering with external service providers.”
The GCC New Age Banking 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 expert regional and global industry speakers from companies including IBM, Bank Muscat, Oman Data Park, Westpac Pacific Banking (Australia), GENESIS Institute (UAE), Arab National Bank (Saudi Arabia), Meethaq Islamic Bank and Takaful Oman Insurance. 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 Omni channel banking and risks & compliance, 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.
Powered by Oman Economic Review (OER), the event also hosted the Oman Banking and Finance Awards, an initiative to acknowledge the achievements of the best performers in the banking and non-banking finance sectors in the Sultanate.
Bloomberberg Businessweek Middle East, OER, Times of Oman and Al Shabiba were the media partners for the event.