Kuwait Finance House was established in the State of Kuwait, in 1977, as the first bank operating in accordance with the Islamic Sharia rulings. Kuwait Finance House-Bahrain is a leading provider of Islamic commercial and investment banking services – established in January 2002 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House-Kuwait.

For its first FinTech initiative, Kuwait Finance House wanted to pave the way for the next generation of financial services with digital banking at the fingertips of its clients. For the development and launch of its digital arm, KFH decided to partner with Codebase Technologies.

Codebase Technologies is a global open API banking solutions provider that engineers digital financial propositions for conventional and Islamic banks, FinTechs, neobanks, lenders, and start-ups. Codebase Technologies has launched several digital, challenger, and neobanks and financial propositions across the UAE, Malaysia, Bahrain, UK, and Africa.

Implementation Process

Codebase Technologies implemented an end-to-end, intuitively designed, intelligently engineered digital onboarding and KYC workflow which encompassed capturing key personal information from platform users with exceptional level of detail applied in developing the user interface and customer workflows. There is a complexity of innovations involved throughout the entire range of the platform – from the most critical, market standard banking features to all other products and functions. Streamlining customer access to payment channels was paramount, as funds needed to be seamlessly utilized at any point-of-sale.

Benefits

This was the first fully digital branchless banking proposition across the MENA region that enabled market-first cross-border account opening – a true branchless digital banking customer experience. KFH saw several positive changes and benefits upon implementing and launching a digital arm.

• The platform enables cutting-edge, comprehensive digital card management and issuance capabilities
• Observed yield of 81% conversion rates with 65% reliance on digital channels
• The overall strategic momentum of the platform resulted in a 35% reduction in physical branch presence, and overall retail banking costs
• The programs ROI entailed an almost 500% increase in customer stickiness and deposit mobilisation

Conclusion

Customers are now more engaged with the digital banking application rather than physical visits as the application serviced almost 80% of their requirements – this number is expected to be 95% by Q4 2022. The platform has now become the norm for them in terms of their day-to-day banking which is a direct result of the successful partnership and collaboration between Codebase Technologies and Kuwait Finance House Bahrain.