Emirates NBD is launching a new innovation lab with a wide-ranging brief, from the cultivation of user-friendly, client-facing design and services through to back office re-engineering.
The first of its kind in the UAE banking sector, the bank says the 'Future Lab' will act as a strategic think tank in addition to being a testing centre for innovative ideas, products and services for retail and wholesale banking customers.
Managed and operated by an in-house team of business and technology experts, the LAB will explore a digital-first approach to customer services, with an emphasis on improving the user-friendliness and engagement value of banking products, aligned with a free-thinking take on process innovation and the achievement of operational efficiency at the back-end.
Abdullah Qassem, group chief operating officer at Emirates NBD says: “Emirates NBD Future Lab will be the foundation of all that we innovate, create and test in our digitisation process."
He points to a range of initiatives in P2P mobile and social banking that were all crowd-sourced via inhouse innovation programmes, adding that the Lab will 'institutionalise' this process while drawing on outside help from the private and public sector as well as fintech startups.
Emirates NBD in June announced plans to launch a digital-only bank aimed at millennials as part of a wider AED500 million ($136 million), three year online and mobile transformation plan.