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ADIB strengthens digital banking ecosystem

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) has announced that it will continue to strengthen its digital banking capabilities with a host of new initiatives as the bank continues to see high adoption and usage of its digital services.

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In the first half of 2021, ADIB has seen a 30 per cent rise in digitally active customers. Currently, the bank has around 700,000 digitally enabled customers, which represents a record of 70 per cent of customers who are active on a daily or weekly basis.

Over the last 18 months, ADIB has progressively introduced innovative features and services that provide simple and more effortless banking experiences. Since then, the bank has witnessed a 58 per cent and 31 per cent growth in digital usage when opening current accounts and conducting personal finance transactions, respectively.

In terms of Retail Services, digital money transfers and customer profile updates have witnessed an 88 per cent and 40 per cent rise, while cash withdrawals and cheque deposits through branches have declined eight per cent and six per cent with more than 95 per cent of these services taking place online, marking a growing usage in digital payments.

Digital adoption in corporate banking has also realised a major surge, with Wholesale Banking Group’s daily transaction clocking a high of 21,000 in June 2021, representing a 95 per cent increase over the same period last year. Around 90 per cent of corporate transactions are completed digitally, up from 60 per cent last year. Similarly, the Business Banking department recorded 56,000 transactions in June 2021, up 27 per cent year-on-year. Around 92 per cent of these transactions were concluded digitally, up from 75 per cent last year.

Samih Awadhalla, head of ADIB distribution channels, said: “With our digital banking ecosystem, we are really showing what is possible when technology meets financial services. Our teams have worked tirelessly to bring the best digital banking services and tools to our customers and ensure they have everything they need at their fingertips - enabling them to make easy and simple financial decisions. And it’s working. Our recent numbers highlight how fast digital adoption has been across our retail and corporate segments.”

He added: “Our digital transformation journey does not stop here, and we are in fact doubling down on ramping up our digital offerings and capabilities. We have a number of initiatives due to be rolled out in the near-term such as paperless branches and a brand-new banking app.”

ADIB has been working on a set of new digital initiatives which are due for rollout in the next six months. ADIB is launching a branch paperless strategy with the aim to saving more than two million papers by end of 2021 as most of the transactions in branches will move to digital.

In addition, the bank has been deploying AI technology to clear cheques with now 400 cheques per day being cleared without any human interaction which the aim to have 65 per cent of cheques cleared digitally by year end which will result in operational efficiency due to reduction of cheque processing time, better risk management and fraud prevention.

Other initiatives including the banks’ chatbot programme continues to evolve, with major upgrades being developed to ensure it can support cases across ADIB’s digital banking ecosystem. The customer-facing chat bot has built sufficient learning now to resolve 85 per cent of queries.

business@khaleejtimes.com

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