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Neobanks to boost customer experience

Dubai - Revonic has completed end-to-end digital transformation projects for major banks within the region.

Traditional banks in the UAE are tranforming into neobanks with a core focus on customer journey, experience design, data and insights, said Adam Cukrowski, founder and chief executive of Revonic.

Neobanks, or digital banks, operate exclusively online without traditional physical branch networks and their catalogue of products and services are usually delivered via a mobile app. Revonic is a digital experience design agency that builds digital capability which drives business performance for clients through the delivery of analysis, strategy, user experience, design, data and technology.

“Our data and machine learning services empower banks to gain insights into customer behaviour and to achieve personalised service delivery,” said Cukrowski.

On a micro level, branch network has been on a decline since 2014 due to digitisation and mergers, according to a research report ‘UAE: Digitalisation in the banking sector’ by Algorithm Research.

The total number of branches have decreased from 892 to 650, indicating a 27.1 per cent fall. As of May 2020, 21 local and 27 foreign banks operate in the seven emirates, with local bank branches accounting for 86.1 per cent of the branch network. From October 2014 to May 2020, 242 local bank branches have closed whilst the number of national banks declined. Only 68 of these bank closures can be linked to the bank mergers.

Revonic has completed end-to-end digital transformation projects for major banks within the region across multiple connected digital channels across web, mobile, online banking, call centres and even ATMs. The brand’s recent portfolio in the region includes Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), Noor Bank, National Bank of Fujairah, Commercial International Bank in Egypt and Riyad Bank in Saudi Arabia.

“We have also supported household names and brands including Emirates Airline, Expo 2020, Du, Mercedes Benz, Emaar and Meraas. Additionally, Revonic has a strong presence supporting companies across Saudi Arabia including The Red Sea Project, ROSHN, King Abdullah Financial District and many others,” said Cukrowski.

Revonic has worked with major retail brands to action their consumer strategies such as helping Mercedes Benz’s modernising and re-structuring online digital presence, in order to establish them as leading car brand in the online space in the Middle East.

Cukrowski opines that the Covid-19 pandemic brought in sudden realisation by many industries and brands that the only way to do business and to reach their customers was online. The issue was that while every marketing, digital or expert was instructed to transform their businesses over-night, the budgets to do so were simply not there for those tasked with making that change. For many it was the time of realisation that to do things right takes focus, effort, time and money — and quick fixes don’t drive business value in the long-term.

“Technology is no longer constrained in delivering the full range of customer expectations — platforms such as Sitecore deliver a fully integrated set of empowering features that enable personalised customer journeys from content management right across to user profiling, data and machine learning, personalisation, marketing automation and A/B testing. The main obstacle is the organisational change management that needs to reflect the new nature of business operations and customer centricity. I believe that 2021 will elevate the maturity of many digital solutions and we will see more genuine digital transformation driving real return on investment,” added Cukrowski. — sandhya@khaleejtimes.com