COMMERCIAL BANK OF DUBAI
“ When it comes to prioritising technology , we prioritise and invest based on customer needs . Sometimes it may not even be technology , it might be a process change , policy change or working with a new partner ”
STEFAN KIMMEL CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER , COMMERCIAL BANK OF DUBAI
be technology , it might be a process change , policy change or working with a new partner .
ATB Pay is one of CBD ’ s key partners . “ ATB is our service partner both on the technology side and in the service fulfilment with the eDirham which is a digital payment scheme for government services in the UAE . That has been another success story for us over the last 12 months as CBD has been selected as one of the preferred banks by the government to provide eDirham cards . ATB is our service and ecosystem partner in that space .”
Focus on cybersecurity Kimmel stressed that cybersecurity is a very important topic at CBD . “ There ' s a strict set of industry requirements which we comply with and on top of that , we regularly employ third parties to do external reviews , audits , and penetration testing to really make sure the required safeguards are in place . We invested quite heavily in an internal team , both from a technological side and capability side to be on top of cybersecurity . Clearly with the pandemic and more things being done online , the risks have increased in that space .
“ The main challenge with cybersecurity is not so much from an external hacker , the biggest risk is vulnerabilities on the client side where clients are tricked into revealing their passwords and their credentials and that then leads to fraud ,” said Kimmel who pointed out CBD work with their clients to educate them on the dangers of phishing and scams .
Looking ahead for future services , Kimmel said they have a permanent pipeline between products and services being released . “ The next big thing in the retail space is making mortgages available online and adding further investment services to the robo-advisory app .
“ On the corporate side we already have digital account opening for SMEs and will be doing digital loans and onboarding for them as well . It ' s a permanent flow of new capabilities and services that we ' re making available for our customers ,” he said .