UAE minister urges financial services providers to invest in technology

Speaking in the run-up to the summit, an exclusive invitation-only event for the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of the top 100 Arab banks and leading IT vendors organised by The World Development Forum, Dr Kirbash said, "According to analysts, total IT spending by Middle East banks in 2005 was estimated to be over US$1.1 billion. This level of investment is absolutely necessary if regional financial institutions are to maintain a competitive edge. Modern financial services are essentially a technology-driven industry."

Dr Kirbash's comments come as the major IT vendors prepare to use the FT Summit as a strategic platform to target the banking sector in the Middle East. The event attracted major IT vendors as sponsors including Gold Sponsors Oracle, EMC, STME and FileNet; Knowledge Partner Cisco Systems; and Silver Sponsors Novell and Xerox.

As well as focusing on the importance of investing in and utilising technology to drive business growth, the summit will analyse the new role required of CIOs and how, with the right IT infrastructure, they can turn their vision for growth into reality.

Hussein Hamza, Financial Industry Director with Oracle Middle East & Africa , said,

"In a competitive market, it is vital that banks understand how customers and market sectors contribute to profitability, and to what extent relationships with particular customer segments are profitable or not. Banks can begin to classify their customers into profitability segments and analyze their profitability trends. They can then develop efficient marketing methods and improve the way they target their customer segments."

Hamza said Oracle will use the summit to share its "thought leadership and expertise in helping banks understand their profitability and competitive abilities."

Jocelyn Al Adwani, Deputy CEO, of STME, said, "The robust growth seen in the banking and financial sector means organisations must develop the necessary technology infrastructure to meet customer requirements efficiently and cost-effectively, and support diverse and increasingly complex banking and financial compliance measures. Storage technologies form the backbone of such development, forcing IT departments to search for solutions that provide data efficiency, confidentiality, integrity and accessibility. STME's participation at the FT summit is aimed at sharing our expertise with decision makers and informing them about best practices prevalent in the storage technology sector."

Samer Alkharrat, General Manager Gulf & Pakistan for Cisco Systems, said,

"Financial institutions face a tall order in their pursuit of competitive advantage. They need to cut costs and at the same time enhance their services and products to retain and grow market share and increase their profitability. Cisco Systems' 'Business Ready Branch for Banking' solution delivers the ability to provide better, more personalised and smarter services from the branch, to help give banks the competitive edge they need. At this year's FT summit, we hope to show just how vital the network is at providing the competitive advantage the financial industry needs to move to the next level of interaction. The summit is a unique platform to address the CIOs of the Middle East Financial Industry."

Gerard McDonnell, Middle East Director for Novell, said, "With the ever increasing pressures on banks and the finance industry in the Gulf for higher IT governance standards - to prepare to be Basel II compliant, to become more agile and enable new services rapidly, while at the same time reducing administrative costs and complexity - it is little wonder that CIOs are under a lot of pressure at the moment. Novell is a veteran in delivering solutions that address all of these challenges. During the FT summit, we will be showing case studies that will substantiate this claim and demonstrate how delegates can benefit from similar solutions."

Khaled Eid, Managing Director of summit organisers The World Development Forum, said, "The FT summit will offer focused integrated marketing channels to bring together both the IT decision makers and leading IT vendors. We are indeed very proud that such high level of IT vendors have agreed to sponsor the FT Summit 2006, and with such senior representatives from the banking and financial industry expected to attend, the event is sure to be a success."

The inaugural event Financial Technology Summit in 2005 attracted 250 senior delegates, including 70 per cent of the CIOs from the top 100 Arab banks. This year, the summit will explore critical issues and challenges facing the industry, including profitability analysis, IT governance, multi-channel integration and delivery, regulatory compliance, information security, storage and disaster recovery, among other key topics.