NEWS
Orange expert
says FinTech
is bringing
banking to the
unbanked
German minister praises
UAE’s contribution to Digital
Transformation
Majid Al Futtaim Retail
receives an SAP award for
being among the world’s
leading retail innovators
D
ubai has played host to the World Retail
Banking Summit 2019 presented with
the support of partners, including Orange
Business Services and Additiv (an Orange
partner) which offers cloud-based wealth
management solutions as-a-service to
financial institutions.
Pieter Zylstra, Director of Digital
Transformation at Orange Business Services,
joined a panel discussion held during
the session on AI, Machine Learning and
robotics, on what the bank of the future will
look like. Pieter shared the distinctive view
of Orange Business Services on enterprise
Digital Transformation across a range of
verticals, including BFSI, both as a mobile
services operator and trusted partner to
government and enterprise, as well as a
mobile banking services provider.
“FinTech gives traditional banks and
financial services companies an edge, by
bringing traditional banking services into
the 21st century,” said Zylstra. “FinTech
allows banks to embrace the new platform
economy, by offering a multitude of
innovative and profitable financial services
to existing and new clients, primarily
using mobile and digital channels. FinTech
is bringing banking to the unbanked in
geographically disparate places, it can
mean making payments and money
transfers quicker, easier and cheaper than
ever before.”
The summit brought together senior bankers
from across the world to share experiences
and views on the leadership and governance
challenges of taking Digital Transformation
to the next level.
8
INTELLIGENTCIO
A minister from Germany has praised
the UAE’s leading role in Digital
Transformation during a visit to SAP’s
Middle East headquarters in Dubai. Digital Transformation to enable the
UAE’s economic growth, especially across
rapidly-digitising industry verticals such as
aviation, oil and gas, retail and utilities.
Katrin Schütz, the State Secretary of
Baden-Württemberg, Germany’s Ministry
of Economic Affairs, praised the UAE’s
contribution to innovation during the
visit. One of more than 900 Germany-
headquartered companies in the UAE,
SAP supports bilateral trade between the
two countries. In the presence of Katrin Schütz,
one of SAP’s most innovative customers
in the region, Majid Al Futtaim’s
flagship retail brand Carrefour, received
SAP’s award ‘International Omni-
Channel Transformation of the Year –
South EMEA.’
Senior officials from the German
government delegation and SAP
emphasised that the UAE and Germany
share a culture of government-led Digital
Transformation and innovation. Hani Weiss, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim
Retail, received the award, joined by
SAP’s global strategic partner Accenture,
for rolling out a SAP-based integrated
e-commerce platform for customers in 15
countries.
The visit underlined SAP’s commitment
to exchanging global best practices in SAP is implementing a five-year US$200
million UAE investment plan.
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