ila News

Manama, Bahrain: ila Bank, the digital mobile-only brainchild of Bank ABC, MENA’s leading international bank, has won two major awards, the ‘Leading Digital Bank in the Middle East’ and the ‘Leading Digital Bank in the Consumer Banking Segment’, at the IBS Intelligence NeoChallenger Bank Awards 2022. ila was honored for delivering a new way of banking through its agile customer-driven innovation approach, leveraging the Cloud.

The pioneering digital bank, along with its technology supplier Amazon Web Services (AWS), emerged victorious in both categories in recognition of ila’s excellence in driving customer impact through innovative use of emerging technologies. This followed IBSi’s assessment of over 100 technology implementations by Neo, Challenger and Digital Banks from 34 countries worldwide.

Commenting on the awards, ila Bank Bahrain CEO, Mohamed Al Maraj said: “ila has been built to challenge and disrupt the traditional retail banking model with the purpose of delivering a smarter, more relevant, and inclusive way of banking, in this increasingly digital fast-changing world. We are indeed honored to have been recognized by IBS Intelligence, a world-renowned authority on financial technology. This win further bolsters our ambitions and reaffirms our success in enriching the consumer banking experience.”
Excelling across all scoring parameters, ila was commended for its seamless customer experience journey; innovation in offering and continuous deployment of tailored products; implementation excellence as a result of its agile methodology and speed-to-market; and profound customer and programme impact.

“This was only possible with the agility, speed and flexibility offered by the AWS Cloud and our outstanding in-house development team. Congratulations to all our employees, partners and client community who contributed to ila’s tremendous success so far. We look forward to continuing to revolutionize the consumer banking value chain as we expand our innovative offering and regional presence,” added Mr. Al Maraj.

Nikhil Gokhale, Head of Research at IBS intelligence said, “ila's cloud-based digital platform enabled it to launch several market-first saving solutions in the Middle East such as ‘Jamiyah,’ automating a regional community saving tradition, an accelerated onboarding process, and innovative payment features, including ‘Transfer by mobile number’. An integrated digital platform allowed ila to leverage insights from its active social media engagement and develop customer-centric solutions, thereby driving financial inclusion and prosperity for its customers.

Established in 1991, the UK based IBS Intelligence (IBSi) is the leading global pure-play Financial Technology research, news analysis, and advisory firm. The 2022 edition of IBSi’s NeoChallenger Awards celebrated leading Digital, Challenger and Neo Banks, along with technology players, for changing the dynamics of retail banking.