Emirates NBD boosts AED 1 billion digital transformation with new milestone in core banking system upgrade

Emirates NBD, a leading banking group in the region, has completed the third phase of its international core banking system upgrade, as it forges ahead with its ongoing digital transformation efforts to boost innovation and efficiency across its domestic and international operations.

Leveraging advanced Finacle technology, the third phase of the project sees the rollout of the new core banking system for Emirates NBD Saudi Arabia, following prior launches in Singapore and the UK in November 2018 and July 2019, respectively. By end-2020, all Emirates NBD entities and markets will be consolidated onto one single, updated core banking platform, enabling the bank to offer new financial services more rapidly across all markets while reducing global IT costs. 

The global initiative is the bank’s biggest in its ongoing AED 1 billion digital transformation that will enter its fourth and final year in 2020. It has already delivered many large-scale enterprise system improvements. This includes completing one of the world’s largest Calypso upgrades to enhance treasury services, strengthening the bank’s global payments capabilities with a new payments hub, and introducing smartTrade for trade finance customers, while simultaneously building world-class, in-house cloud, agile, enterprise data, security and API-based architecture capabilities. 

Abdulla Qassem, Group Chief Operating Officer, Emirates NBD, said: “Emirates NBD is proud to announce the third phase of our international core banking system upgrade in Saudi Arabia, following successful launches in Singapore and the UK.”

“This is another important milestone in our long-term digital transformation strategy that has already delivered numerous major upgrades and consolidations to our enterprise applications. In 2020, our focus is on concluding our most complex, multi-entity initiatives like the core banking system upgrade while ensuring all of our technology enhancements increasingly translate into seamless, innovative financial services for our customers,” he added.