The founder and former chairperson of Emaar Properties—Mohamed Alabbar, according to sources, will lead Zand. Zand is the UAE’s first digital bank that is going to cater to clients of retail and corporate. On Monday, Mr. Alabbar said,
“The UAE combines progressive regulations with commercial, financial, and technology hubs. This provides the perfect environment for a world-leading digital bank that can launch in the UAE and scale beyond. As the first fully independent digital bank in the country, with a full UAE banking license, Zand will provide innovative, effective financial solutions that help simplify businesses and lives, addressing the needs of both retail and corporate customers.”
Zand is a “digital economic accelerator”. It serves as a platform for several digital services that will focus on people, especially businesses. The final regulation of this new entity’s approval is yet to be made and is expected to launch imminently. Olivier Crespin is the chief executive. He was a banker who has recently led Eradah Capital in Dubai. He had worked for BNP Paribas, Citi, and DBS Bank, previously.
In 2020, ADQ, one of the most leading holding companies in the region, revealed its plan to set up a digital bank in the UAE. It will use a legacy banking license, which will be held by the First Abu Dhabi Bank.
With the rise of digitalization in every field, the need to bring banking services into cyberspace felt necessary. This will make it easier for the general public to access services at home with convenience. Along with this, it will save a lot of their time. This is also a result of the increasing use of smartphones that demanded online banking services. Also, due to the COVID-19 lockdown, it felt the necessity to pivot digital services across industries.
JP Morgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon said in 2020 at Sibos, an annual conference for the global financial services industry that generally the digitalization of banking services takes two months, but they completed it in two weeks as a result of the lockdown 2020.
According to McKinsey, on global terms, lenders are expected to speed up this shift to digital operations and reconfigure their networks of branches where the demands have fallen.
According to a survey by a consultancy, the use of cash and cheques by consumers fell in the last year from 20 percent to 40 percent.
Many UAE lenders are now bringing forth their digital services that are attracting the millennials. It is crucial because millennials are counted under the segment of growing consumers.
According to a report by US consultancy, TechSci Research, it is projected that the mobile wallet market to hit $ 2.3 billion by the year 2022.
Source: The National News
