Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad – the nation’s first listed Islamic financial services institution — goes digital through a new alliance with leading global cloud platform.
Under aims to innovate new banking services faster and help customers better manage their finances, Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced that the bank selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider to power its digital transformation.
The bank is using the depth and breadth of AWS’s cloud capabilities, including containers, networking, and content delivery, to build the Be U digital bank to help customers better manage their finances.
Bank Islam is building Be U through its Centre of Digital Experience (CDX), an independent division which is developing new banking services on AWS to transform customer experiences.
Coming into effect on Aug 1, Bank Islam has over 5 million customers who increasingly demand new and innovative digital banking services to better manage their finances, including quick response (QR) code payments, and automated supply-chain financing for small and midsize enterprises (SMEs).
Before the establishment of CDX, the bank took more than a year to deploy a new financial service using its on-premises infrastructure. By turning to AWS, Bank Islam can develop new digital financial services, including an app, a debit card, and a financing facility, in just a few weeks, to better serve customers.
Bank Islam CEO Mohd Muazzam Mohamed said: “Our aim is to raise the prosperity of all Malaysians, and AWS has given Bank Islam the ability to innovate and quickly launch new digital financial services that are meaningful to our customers’ financial health and well-being.”
“We selected AWS as our preferred cloud provider to benefit from the highest levels of security and compliance, without sacrificing speed of innovation. We were able to develop a prototype for our Be U digital bank in only three months with AWS, and we can now explore advanced cloud services, like machine learning, to develop an alternative credit framework to broaden access to customers who would otherwise have difficulty obtaining a credit line.”
Through CDX, Bank Islam can quickly develop and deliver a portfolio of digital financial services that comply with Islamic/Shariah financial requirements. CDX also gains the agility to innovate rapidly to become more customer-centric at a lower cost, while complying with the bank’s stringent security and compliance control requirements.
CDX has also selected cloud-native AWS Advanced Technology Partner Mambu to help further accelerate the bank’s digital transformation journey. Mambu provisioned its cloud-native core banking solution on AWS to power CDX’s development environment in just one day, enabling the bank to build the Be U prototype in three months.
With Amazon CloudFront, a content-delivery network service, CDX can deliver content, like educational videos and interactive forecasting tools, via Be U to help customers monitor their spending, control budgeting, and oversee all aspects of their banking experience, including authorizing international credit card spending.
AWS’s capabilities will allow Bank Islam’s strategic partners, including financial technology firms and digital marketplaces, to integrate and co-innovate with CDX to provide financial services like payments, financing, and financial advice via Be U, offering customers more ways to manage their finances digitally.
AWS ASEAN Managing Director Conor McNamara said: “Banks of all sizes across Southeast Asia are using cloud technology to drive financial inclusion, deploy disruptive business models to attract customers in the face of new digital challenger banks, and ensure that they can hire and retain top talent. In Malaysia, Bank Islam is a great example of that.”
