Banking industry gets valuable insights into outsourcing and ePayment solutions scenario

Participants engaged in a vigorous debate at the event with conclusions emerging on the permanence of outsourcing in the Middle East. Azzam Al Dari, Regional Director, Consulting. META Group Middle East commented on the fact that banks need to institutionalize a "Change Culture" that mandates focus on building core competencies and acquiring or outsourcing support competencies like ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) through Excellence Partnerships.

The need to engage in constructive partnerships was echoed by eCompany with Amir Rashid, Marketing Manager, eBusiness & Infrastructure Services eCompany urging participants to look for a partner with a strong financial viability, local presence, SLA (Service Level Agreements) and excellent Quality of Service.

On the ePayments front, participants got an insight from eCompany on the OASIS (Online Authentication Service for Issuers) service which is an authentication standard designed to authenticate cardholders and hence reduce fraud and chargeback for online transactions. In terms of increasing the penetration of ePayments in the Middle East, discussions at the conference led to a view that business considerations and increased volume of implementations of authentication services by issuing banks would lead to increased confidence in online payments. Both Mastercard and Visa presented their initiatives for securing online payment transactions during the event.

Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar, GM eCompany kicked off the conference with his opening address. According to him, "As competition intensifies and margins narrow, there is obvious pressure to lower operational and service delivery costs. Regulatory compliance issues also come to the fore placing a huge strain on IT resources."

"With eBanking & financial services outsourcing gaining increasing impetus in the Middle East, access to world class managed services or outourcing partners is an ideal opportunity to offer customers enhanced services as a viable and cost-effective alternative to in-house capabilities. I am confident this event will generate a lot of debate among the banking community and presented them with a framework to take further steps in meeting the challenges of an increasingly competitive banking environment."

"I would like to thank eCompany for staging such a timely event like this and bringing together such major players like Visa, Mastercard and Meta Group," said Mahmood Al Bastaki, Acting Director eServices, Dubai eGovernment. "Ecommerce security is a big concern and a lot of attention needs to paid to this for more people to have confidence in carrying out electronic transactions over the Internet. From our perspective, outsourcing is definitely viable for eGovernment and we have already expedited implementation so that we can focus on our core competencies."

According to Rasool Hujair, CEO, Arab Financial Services of Bahrain, " This was a well organized event and a good attempt at introducing the banking community to the latest technologies and solutions for outsourcing and ePayments. The caliber of speakers was excellent and I hope such events continue. Having the backing of such a credible and well established player such as eCompany from Etisalat goes along way in creating interest and awareness on such issues among the industry."