Bank Muscat banks on Oracle E-Business Suite

As the bank continues to grow both domestically and regionally through a strategy of mergers and acquisitions, the Oracle business software deployment will enable Bank Muscat's executives to better manage its cash flow and the resources of more than 2500 employees in Oman and Bahrain.

With portfolios in the retail, corporate, and investment banking sectors, Bank Muscat will rely on the Oracle Financials and Oracle Purchasing solutions to integrate all of its accounting processes across the different banking groups, ensuring that executives have up-to-the-minute information on the organization's cost, capital and assets. From a personnel perspective, the Oracle Human Resources Management System, including Oracle Payroll, will automate and deliver a number of online services that Bank Muscat's employees around the region can access, significantly reducing the time and cost associated with manual functions such as salary payments, expense reports, and leave requests.

"In order to maintain our leadership in the market as expert financial advisors and reliable business partners for our clients, it's critical that Bank Muscat itself have stringent control of our own financial processes, including an integrated real-time system that reflects the bottom lines of all of our diverse banking interests. The Oracle E-Business Suite provides a solution that links critical elements such as employee payroll to our core financial functions, resulting in a more informed, integrated business environment," stated D. Venu, Bank Muscat's IT manager.

"In addition to integration between financials and human resources, Oracle's demonstrated scalability will be a boon to Bank Muscat given our aggressive growth strategy and lineup of new customer services being developed. Oracle's strategic partnership with the governments of both Oman and Bahrain - our key markets - is also further evidence of the software's reliability," Venu added.

With more than six strategic mergers and acquisitions completed in the last five years, Bank Muscat will rely on the Oracle deployment to create a single instance of its finances across the company's different lines of business. Centralizing financial information from Oman's largest branch network as well as Bank Muscat's regional offices will enable the financial services leader to more accurately assess the level of necessary resources to make further acquisitions. With the region's changing regulatory landscape, the Oracle Financials solution will also help ensure that Bank Muscat is in compliance with any new records retention or risk assessment requirements.

Similarly, Bank Muscat's dynamic growth has caused the bank's workforce to grow and in order to fully leverage its human resources, the Oracle HRMS solution will allow the bank to better track and develop employee competencies, and migrate online a number of administrative personnel tasks to reduce paperwork and allow self service for its employees.

"Any organization pursuing a growth strategy based on mergers and acquisitions must be able to report on its financial health at any given time, in addition to requiring the flexibility to act quickly when market opportunities arise. Similarly, the merged entity needs human resources in place that maximize skills while streamlining administration. In recognizing these issues, Bank Muscat has invested considerably in the future of its success with the Oracle E-Business Suite," stated Husam Dajani, vice president of Oracle Middle East.

Oracle has become the platform of choice for the Middle East's banking sector, with leading financial institutions like Mashreq Bank, Emirates Bank, National Bank of Dubai, Al Rajhi Banking and Investment, Egyptian American Bank and Doha Bank all selecting modules of the Oracle E-Business Suite.