ADIB strengthens its digital banking ecosystem in H1 2021

By Leandra Monteiro

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB), 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.

In the first half of 2021, ADIB has seen a 30% rise in digitally active customers. Currently, the bank has around 700,000 digitally enabled customers, which represents a record of 70% 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, according to the bank, it has witnessed a 58% and 31% 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% and 40% rise, while cash withdrawals and cheque deposits through branches have declined 8% and 6% with more than 95% 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% increase over the same period last year. Around 90% of corporate transactions are completed digitally, up from 60% last year. Similarly, the Business Banking department recorded 56,000 transactions in June 2021, up 27% year-on-year. Around 92% of these transactions were concluded digitally, up from 75% 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 6 months. ADIB is launching a branch paperless strategy with the aim to saving more than 2 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% 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% of queries.