National Bank of Dubai is one of the United Arab Emirates largest bank with a good market share, 27 branches, and over a few hundred thousand customers. The Bank implemented FBA Navigator throughout its branches in 2000, giving it a powerful customer information system that has dramatically improved its customer service and strengthened its market position.  However, the Bank continually strives to improve its offerings and to seek market differentiation in a region that is fiercely competitive.

FBA Navigator offered NBD a winning combination of functionality, openness, and architecture to support both today’s and tomorrow’s retail delivery in the highly competitive marketplace.

NBD was impressed with the Raqmiyat commitment to build a truly new retail delivery environment based on open systems and object-oriented concepts.  Key factors behind the choice of FBA Navigator were the ease with which “best-of-breed” products could be integrated and the cost advantages derived from adhering to recognized standards.

FBA Navigator is a functionally rich product that provides the bank with an opportunity for growth.  As the banks business changes and grows, technology is not going to be a constraining factor for the foreseeable future.

Summary

The bank was looking for a system that would enable them to move away from legacy systems and to implement a scalable and open systems based solution.  Key goals where to make transaction processing easier for tellers and faster for the customers.  FBA Navigator was the obvious choice for the bank as it provided the integrated retail delivery approach that the bank required, enabling them to use the NT-based transaction management system in the branch and move the same system when required into other touch points like the call center at a later date. This clearly has benefits in terms of reducing development and training costs.

Client Profile

National Bank of Dubai is recognized as the Bank with a performance that's second-to-none in terms of strength.  Furthermore the Bank has always protected valuable regional traditions whilst embracing the best contemporary business practices.  Established in 1963, the bank has always ensured that it is ahead or in pace with Dubai’s development.  The philosophy of the Bank has always been to protect valuable traditions whilst embracing the best contemporary business practices.

Business Challenge

In deciding to implement the FBA Navigator solution, the main challenge was to seamlessly interface and integrate with other systems within the bank.

Raqmiyat Solution

Raqmiyat implemented the UNISYS FBA-Navigator by customizing the application to meet the exact business requirements of the bank.  Over the years Raqmiyat has also re-engineered the branch automation application to interface to the banks newly implemented core banking system.

Benefits

Significant productivity improvements, cost reductions, and convenient, flexible service delivery.  Based on object-oriented technology, the FBA Navigator system gave NBD the flexibility to build a system capable of handling many types of transaction, meaning that tellers can work on a single system regardless of the type of transaction.

Summary

Microsoft solutions offer the potential for enterprises to achieve 21st century computing and implementing these solutions is not a child’s play, especially the Migration and Active Directory implementation. Raqmiyat Professional Services ensures a fast, smooth and predictable migration without any disruption to your day-to-day business operations. Our consultants have the critical expertise to ensure successful migration initiatives.

Analysts and Corporate users believe that MS Windows 2000 (W2K) migration and Active Directory (AD) implementation is a daunting task and may be the toughest in computer history. However for Raqmiyat it has been a smooth sailing at one of the major migration projects at National Bank of Dubai (NBD).

National Bank of Dubai is one of the largest banks in the UAE with a good market share, 27 branches, and over a few hundred thousand customers.  As the organization grew and spread across the region, the bank acquired a number of applications and the associated technology infrastructure to provide better service to its patrons.  As a result, NBD found itself managing an increasingly complex infrastructure.  In the interest of  simplifying overall IT management and achieve their goals of greater productivity and business efficiency, NBD decided to consolidate all of their domains to deliver a reliable, secure and scalable platform for application and services.

Being in the service industry, downtime translates into denial-of-service which affects the bottom line and also has a negative influence on the image of the bank.  NBD was looking for an IT service provider who would enable them to migrate into Windows 2000 and implement a blue-print for the Active Directory.    For Raqmiyat, as a Microsoft Solutions Provider, it was yet another migration project, a project unique in its own right, and a project completed in the span of 2 months, to the complete satisfaction of the bank.

Business Challenge

In deciding to migrate into W2K & AD, the main challenge was to consolidate 35 domains with 100’s of servers and qualifying a multitude of applications all key to the bank to provide a sustained level of service.

Raqmiyat Solution

Raqmiyat with its team of Microsoft Certified Engineers and Microsoft, set up a proof-of-concept lab to demonstrate the W2K & AD migration.  Raqmiyat also provided certified blueprints and procedures for the migration in the production environment.

Benefits

Significant productivity improvements, cost reductions, and convenient, flexible service delivery.  A single robust domain as opposed to a clutter of over 30 domains.  A more simple and manageable IT infrastructure that is easy to manage and administer.

The Central Bank of UAE has always succeeded to build and maintain a modern and sophisticated infrastructure in the country.  In its continuing strive to be the best in the region, Central Bank moved away from a manual cheque clearing system to an automated cheque clearing system in 1994.

Currently all the 6 major clearing centers are fully automated and is based on the Unisys medium speed document processing transports.  The clearing centers clear an average of 30,000 cheques in Dubai to about 2,000 cheques in Fujairah.

In addition to this Raqmiyat also has implemented desk-top document processing transports in about 25 participant banks in the UAE.

Over the years, the systems at Central Bank, have been migrated from the Unisys proprietary operating system to open systems based Microsoft Windows NT technology.

Raqmiyat played a major role in implementing the systems and has been supporting the implementation from their offices in Dubai & Abu Dhabi.  Raqmiyat is also currently partnering with the Central Bank in modernizing the Cheque Clearing System.

Summary

The Central Bank of UAE has always succeeded to build and maintain a modern and sophisticated infrastructure in the country.  In its continuing strive to be the best in the region, Central Bank moved away from a manual cheque clearing system to an automated cheque clearing system in 1994.  Currently all the 6 major clearing centers are fully automated and is based on the Unisys medium speed document processing transports.

Client Profile

Central Bank plays a myriad of roles in supporting the national economy of the United Arab Emirates.  In addition to acting as the bank to the other banks operating in the country, it is also the banker and financial advisor to the Government.  Central Bank formulates and implements the country's Banking, Credit and Monetary Policy in order to realize and achieve the Economic Policy objectives, including price stability, and to support the U.A.E. currency.

Business Challenge

Providing an infrastructure to transform the way cheques are cleared is not an easy task by any scale of measure.  Raqmiyat along-with Unisys in association with and guidance from, the Central Bank, introduce the MICR code-line that is now standard in the country.  Challenges existed in ensuring that all the participant banks were educated about the MICR code-line and implementing systems at the participant banks to ensure their compliance.

Raqmiyat Solution

Automated Cheque processing infrastructure for the entire country is based on the Unisys medium speed document processing transports and a feature rich software solution from Aperta based on Microsoft Windows NT platform have been key factors in meeting the expectations of Central Bank.

Benefits

The clearing system currently in use, ensures more accurate inter-bank settlements, saves a lot of time and effort and gives a positive impression of the developments witnessed by the banking sector, which accompanies growth and developments in all sectors of the country's economy.

Dubai, UAE – 29th March 2004: The Private Office of the National Bank of Dubai (NBD) has signed a unique, private banking Triple'A & Advisor contract with Odyssey Asset Management Systems and its local partner, Raqmiyat LLC.

Under the agreement, NBD’s relationship managers will be supplied with an integrated tool through the combination of Triple ‘A’ – the leading portfolio management system in Europe – and Advisor – the comprehensive relationship management tool devised for Private Banking. The agreement is due to go live at the end of June 2004.

The project is the first of its kind in the region and is seen as the most aggressive automation initiative in the region’s banking sector. Having established a major line of business, NBD has realised the necessity of automation in achieving the Bank’s marketing and expansion plans.

In a statement issued today, Odyssey said NBD has experienced outstanding growth in its Private Banking activities that drove its decision to invest in Odyssey’s wealth management solutions. NBD has recently been chosen the best local Private Bank in the UAE by Euromoney Magazine.

“The relationship between Odyssey, a market leader in Private Banking and wealth management solutions, and Raqmiyat, a specialised provider of services and solutions to the regional financial institutions, is a natural compliment,” explained Antoine Duchateau, CEO of Odyssey. “This relationship is already bearing fruits in the Middle East that is an increasingly important region for the wealth management industry.”

“Raqmiyat has been providing total ICT solutions for major financial institutions in the region for the last twenty years. We have partnered with Odyssey to cater for the emerging demand for high quality Private banking and wealth management solution in GCC,” said Tapas Roy, COO, Raqmiyat. “NBD is a strategic client for us and we are committed to enabling the Bank to achieve its ambitious private banking plans.”

Speaking on behalf of the Bank at the agreement signing ceremony, Faranak Foroughi, Head of NBD’s Private Office, said, “We are striving to deploy state-of-the-art solutions in order to offer our customers the best services. Odyssey has tremendously successful partnerships with leading international institutions and we are confident we have chosen the right partners.”

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