Kuwait Finance
House - Bahrain (KFH-Bahrain), a leading Islamic bank in the Kingdom of
Bahrain, has recently announced going live with its advanced Open Banking
infrastructure, which will allow it to partner with innovative fintech’s from
around the world to deliver a wide array of services in line with their
customer demands.
The preparation
for Open Banking comes in support of the long-term vision of the Central Bank
of Bahrain, as well as KFH–Bahrain’s strategy and commitment to further drive
and support innovation in the FinTech industry, by investing in systems that
further enhance customer experience with more efficiency and transparency. The
Kingdom is one of the earliest global adopters of mandatory open banking,
putting it at the vanguard of customer-driven change in financial services. It
is this kind of pioneering and flexible innovation that has earned Bahrain a
reputation as the region’s leading testbed for next-generation technologies.
Mr. Khalid
Rafea, Executive Manager and Head of Retail Banking Group at KFH-Bahrain, said
“Open banking will allow our customers to enjoy a wide range of innovative
digital solutions and services, including enabling a consolidated view of all
their bank accounts through a single platform, which will allow for greater
collaboration and integration amongst banks, financial institutions and payment
service providers in the Kingdom of Bahrain.”
“Open Banking
will create more opportunities for commercial collaborations and strategic
partnerships. This development is a valuable addition to the existing range of
exceptional services and solutions that are offered to our customers today
which we aim to continue to develop to remain at the forefront of this
transformation”, he added.
Mr. Mohammed
Fahmi Hamad, Executive Manager & Head of Information Technology at
KFH-Bahrain commented: “Open Banking, in combination with the recently
announced Personal Data Protection Laws in Bahrain will allow Bank account
holders to consent to sharing details of their accounts and payments history,
to licensed third party providers in order to leverage new technologies like
Data Analytics and Artificial learning to make more aware financial decisions.
In addition to that, customers will soon be able to link their accounts to
independent licensed applications offering a large range of services and
solutions. “From our end, we remain excited and committed to support these
developments to ensure KFH customers receive the best service”.
In line with
KFH’s record, being among the first banks to integrate a FinTech through the
launch of its “KFH Jazeel Banking” platform, “we are today proud to partner
with Tarabut Gateway WLL, a subsidiary of Almoayed Technologies, to continue
that journey supporting local FinTechs and to ensure that we continue
delivering innovative best in class solutions to our customers in Bahrain”, Mr.
Hamad concluded.
From his end,
added Mr. Abdulla Almoayed, CEO of Almoayed Technologies “The Open Banking
regulation introduced by the Central Bank of Bahrain will with no doubt
position Bahrain as the most advanced Financial Services sector in the region
and we are honored to partner with KFH to support this initiative deliver best
in class services to the people of Bahrain.”