Ahmed Al Musalmi, CEO, Sohar International, talks about its rebranding, new direction and the financial performance in 2018

Bank Sohar (as it was formerly known) has recently rebranded itself as Sohar International. What is the vision behind this rebranding?

Sohar International is among the youngest banks and it is the fastest growing bank in Oman with 10 per cent market share, serving over 250,000 customers and offering a wide range of corporate, investment, retail and Islamic banking services through an extensive network of physical and digital touchpoints across the Sultanate.

The vision behind the new brand is to become a leading Omani service company that helps customers, communities and people prosper and grow. This aspirational and inspirational vision is underpinned by five key pillars: purpose, promise, principles, personality and experience. The purpose encompasses the renewed organisational belief of helping people win by delivering banking for their ever changing world, which is supported by the promise for responsive banking services for people to reach any goal. Our behaviors will be based on simple principles: The principle of more velocity that everything we do will be made simple and fast; the principle of more value that everything will be made relevant and connected to our customers’ world; and the principle of more vision that everything is geared towards progress, liberating new thinking and demonstrated by our professional teams who embrace the personality of being sharp, human and unstoppable that will be felt through any interactions.

It is in this context that our business is transforming into an ecosystem of financial services offering differentiated value propositions with a variety of choices for our customers and unrivalled customer experience.

During the launch of the new identity you said, “Our business needed to transform to become more customer-centric, keep us and our customers ahead of the game and help people win in such an ever-changing world.” What can customers – both internal and external-expect from Sohar International as part of this new strategic direction?

Customer-centricity and excellence are embedded deeply into our new business model that is designed to provide a variety of best-in-class differentiated value propositions with excellence and experience that is second to none. We endevour to bring the best of the world to our customers and showcase the best of Oman to the rest of the world through strategic partnerships and alliances.

We design our digital products and services in line with the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple etc. The launch of our eFloos in collaboration with Omantel is one example of the best-in-class digital wallet whose adoption by customers has been overwhelming. The eFloos digital wallet delivers on our principle of more velocity, more value and more vision that provides speed, scale and simplicity to our customers’ increasingly busy lifestyles. We are investing heavily in innovation and entrepreneurship to provide our customers with the best in class value added products and services.

Please explain the idea and ethos of the new brand for our readers?

With confidence, flexibility and ambition, we adopted a sharp, human and unstoppable personality in how we do things internally and externally. We are more focused in our engagements and we understand as humans and also as customers how much it means to a person when they are empowered to achieve their goals. Believing that our customers deserve the best banking experience, we find solutions for them to achieve their goals and push bounderies wherever possible. We do not seek to disrupt – we seek to create a new normal.

With this ideology, our brand logo sets to capture the stature and elegance of a financial institution while still feeling dynamic and perpetual. We are dynamic; the two semi circles depict the essence of time – the mechanics within a clock’s movement. The orange spike denotes Sohar International being right there in the right place at the right time – that element of precision – at the centre of things that are important to customers.

Sohar International has dropped the word ‘bank.’ Is this an indication that you are looking at areas beyond the realm of banking and financial services?

In the words of Bill Gates, “banking is necessary, banks are not!” This explains the severity of the altering world, where we are required to go beyond the norm of banking to remain relevant. Sohar International is more than a physical entity; we are more fluid through enriched and personalised experiences. Offering fast, more relevant and liberating comprehensive services is what enables us to become an ecosystem for more than just providing financial services to our customers. Our vision is to forge ahead as a ‘world-leading Omani service company’, and as I mentioned earlier, this will challenge us to benchmark each aspect of our performance against leading service providers in multiple industries while we will move forward ensuring consistency raising the bar for banking in Oman.

Sohar International does not have an overseas physical presence currently. Given this, what is the relevance and justification for using ‘International’ as a part of your new identity?

As I explained earlier, we endevour to bring the best of the world to Oman and showcase the best of Oman to the rest of the world through strategic partnerships and alliances. We design our digital products and services in line with the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple etc. Our rebrand carries forward a promise, the assurance of providing responsive banking services per international standards. We further want to be where our customers go, assisting them every step of the way.

How was Sohar International’s financial performance in 2018 and what are your thoughts on 2019?

We closed 2018 on a strong and remarkable note; I personally believe that 2018 was a noteworthy milestone on our journey towards becoming a leading service company, with sustained growth throughout the year. We worked extensively on reinforcing our commitment towards an enhanced performance on the fundamentals in response to the on-going challenging operating environment.

We are extremely pleased with our performance in 2018, ending the year with a net profit of RO29.36mn, comparing to RO25.33mn in 2017, marking an increase of 15.9 per cent. The bank’s board of directors recommended a cash dividend of 6 per cent for the year, corresponding to 6 baisas per share. We closed 2018 with a promise to generate more velocity, vision, and value for our stakeholders.

The dawn of 2019 along with our rebrand retains our focus on customer centricity with the launch of our new, modern and dynamic identity under the name Sohar International. Sohar International embodies a new purpose to help customers, community and people to grow, prosper and win by providing them responsive banking solutions in an ever-changing world. This is our first step towards a foray into redefining banking beyond just financial services which falls directly in-line with our customer-centric mentality. We will continue to craft new avenues of growth that not only further our customer’s success but also catapult the development of the industry and the Sultanate as well.