SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 28, 2019– Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced that Emirates NBD, a leading bank in the Middle East, is collaborating with AWS to create a culture of innovation within the bank and is using AWS machine learning (ML) services to build a personalized retail customer banking experience. Emirates NBD will also utilize AWS data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and other advanced technologies as part of its ongoing efforts to better engage with customers and simplify banking.
A front-runner in retail banking innovation, Emirates NBD is working with AWS because of its broad and deep portfolio of cloud services and the increased security and control Emirates NBD can achieve in the cloud, and is continuing to invest in AWS as its preferred provider for machine learning workloads. With AWS, Emirates NBD will take further advantage of AWS artificial intelligence and machine learning services including Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed machine learning service for building, training, and deploying machine learning models to provide relevant real-time banking experiences.
To create a more rewarding and customer-centric banking experience, Emirates NBD is also leveraging Amazon Personalize, an AWS machine learning service that enables the development of individualized recommendations to launch new personalized retail banking applications. One of the first of these applications is a personal finance manager that uses an automated, self-learning system to deliver a highly personalized banking experience to customers in order to predict what each individual customer needs and match this with the most appropriate solution. The system also utilizes Natural Language Processing technology so customers can interact with call center automation in a more natural way. To support this work, Emirates NBD is using Amazon Polly, a cloud service that uses advanced deep learning technologies to convert written content into human-like speech, in its automated call center to further enhance customer interactions by delivering lifelike voice banking experiences. As part of Emirates NBD’s journey with AWS, it is also exploring how to better serve customers at bank branches with convenient and secure authentication, leveraging AWS’s image recognition and IoT solutions.
“Our vision is to be the Middle East’s most innovative financial services organization and to achieve this we have chosen to work with the world’s most innovative technology company, Amazon Web Services,” said Suvo Sarkar, Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head – Retail Banking & Wealth Management at Emirates NBD. “Emirates NBD and Amazon share common values of innovation and customer centricity and we look forward to leveraging AWS’s technologies and innovation practices to make banking more easy and intuitive for our customers.”
“Across every industry, companies are starting to meaningfully use machine learning in their businesses, and AWS offers the broadest and deepest portfolio of machine learning services to help them solve some of their biggest challenges. We are excited to see how these technologies are helping transform the financial services industry in the Middle East and around the world,” said Andy Isherwood, Managing Director, Amazon Web Services EMEA. “Emirates NBD is one of the most valued and innovative financial institutions in the Middle East, and we look forward to continuing to support them as they embark on a journey to transform how they serve their retail banking customers and build their organization into a bank of the future.”
About Amazon Web Services
For 13 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 165 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 66 Availability Zones (AZs) within 21 geographic regions, spanning the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, India,Ireland, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Sweden, and the UK. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
About Emirates NBD
Emirates NBD is a leading banking Group in the region. As at 31st March 2019, total assets were AED 525.8 Billion (equivalent to approx. USD 143 Billion). The Group has a significant retail banking franchise in the UAE and is a key participant in the global digital banking industry, with over 90 per cent of all financial transactions and requests conducted outside of its branches. The bank was declared the Most Innovative Financial Services Organization of the Year at the 2017 BAI Global Innovation Awards.
The bank currently has 234 branches and 1076 ATMs and SDMs in the UAEand overseas and a large social media following, being the only bank in the Middle East ranked among the top 20 in the ‘Power 100 Social Media Rankings’, compiled by The Financial Brand. It is a major player in the UAE corporate and retail banking arena and has strong Islamic Banking, Global Markets & Treasury, Investment Banking, Private Banking, Asset Management and Brokerage operations.
The Group has operations in the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt,India, Singapore, the United Kingdom and representative offices in China, Indonesia and Turkey.
The Group is an active participant and supporter of the UAE’s main development and community initiatives, in close alignment with the UAE government’s strategies, including financial literacy and advocacy for inclusion of People with Disabilities under its #TogetherLimitless platform. Emirates NBD Group is a Premier Partner and the Official Banking Partner for Expo 2020 Dubai. For more information, please visit: www.emiratesnbd.com
