Khamis M. Buharoon

Over the past two years the number of customers with visa cards has doubled, the bank has introduced car financing for its customers, and a new Elite banking service now caters to the special needs of clients with a net worth of over Dhs5 million. There is also an Internet Bank that is ahead of target, and expects to have more than 10% of clients online by the end of the year, and mobile WAP banking will be launched in a few months. So just what has been going on at the NBAD?

'Michael Tomalin and I arrived in the same week two years ago, with clear support from the Board to adopt a new strategy,' says Mr Buharoon, a 36-year old UAE national who joined the Bank after 12 years with the UAE Central Bank. 'I had no experience of retail banking, so that was a challenge for me, but I know my own people and what they require, whereas Mr Tomalin had joined from Barclays Bank from the UK and had some strong ideas'.

Over the next half year, the NBAD will be extending its branch network in the Northern Emirates and opening a dozen branches, including one of its Elite banks in Dubai. This will be a head-on challenge to both local banks jealous of their own territory, and the international banks, but Mr Buharoon is undeterred.

'The UAE is only a small market, but we now have a product base in retail, corporate and investment banking that can offer an excellent service across the emirates. All our 52 branches are electronically linked so that if you are in Fujairah, you can still access your account in Abu Dhabi, for example'.

But he reserves his biggest enthusiasm for the prospects for Internet Banking at the NBAD, a service that was only launched last November.

'This is a huge delivery channel for banking services', says Mr Buharoon, who has 650 staff reporting to him. 'We are putting together the full package of delivery channels, including self-service branches, a call centre, telephone banking, ATMs, Internet banking and WAP mobile services. Our target is the 20-35 year old market. This is what the youth market wants, and we expect to have 10% of our customers banking online by the end of the year. The uptake of this service has been much faster than we expected.

'For us it offers the chance to lower transaction costs while giving a better service to our customers. They can pay Etisalat bills and traffic fines online, transfer cash abroad, and pay their credit card bills. It is great for retail customers who can do their banking 24 hours-a-day. Wherever they happen to be in the world, NBAD is always there.

'And for corporate clients we have letters of credit, and letters of guarantee available online, with a guaranteed fast turnaround time. We are encouraging as many as possible of our clients to move on to the Internet to save themselves time and money'.

While the Internet may be the cutting edge of the banking world, the NBAD has also moved to rapidly bring its regular banking products up to modern standards. Its Sayyarati car loan scheme, for customers only, introduced a new product line that has been very popular since it started 18 months ago.

'Before we used to issue a book of cheques so that customers could go off and get a car loan. Now we do it all for them,' explains Mr Buharoon. 'We give them the best rate of 6% on new vehicles up to a maximum of Dhs200,000, and also have our own very competitive insurance scheme'.

It is the same story with credit cards. Two years ago barely 10% of NBAD customers carried credit cards, and now that number has more than doubled. There is also a special Platinum Card for high net worth customers with a range of special services such as an airport pick-up, valet parking and life insurance. And newest additions to the range are a virtual card for Internet shopping and a Visa Travel Money card to load up with money for foreign travelling.

NBAD has promoted its Visa and MasterCard credit cards through a variety of innovative promotions. The latest is a co-promotion with Gulf Air offering a raffle for a free ticket every year for the rest of your life. There have been other co-promotions with Mercedes and Fiat.

'Our target is to get 65% of our customers as credit card users over the next five years', says Mr Buharoon. 'But this is a matter of educating the marketplace. We still have customers who use a credit card to withdraw cash from an ATM and then spend it. That is not how we want them to use their cards'.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi is clearly enjoying a phase of expansion and modernisation under its new management team, and remains the UAE's largest bank with assets of around $10 billion. Net profits surged from $84.7m to $139.7m in the year 2000, and will rise again this year.

'Of course we are only building on the success of the past 30 years,' says Mr Buharoon. 'We still have staff who joined the bank then, and that is a great strength. Part of our strategy is to continue investing in our staff and training them to meet the challenges ahead.'

Mr Buharoon forecasts a very good year for the UAE banks in 2001, after a successful year 2000, and reckons the UAE stock market will soon start to register an improvement. Naturally the NBAD has a fund to allow its national and expatriate customers to invest in the UAE stock market.

For the NBAD, it seems that the only way is up, and its customers are already feeling the benefit of new products and services that were unavailable two years ago.