Group Business Services (GBS)

Our deep-seated digital expertise, honed through our long-term digital transformation strategy, ensured that the Bank was well-prepared to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did GBS safeguard operations, but it also succeeded in strengthening and enhancing the customer experience throughout 2020.

WHAT WE DO

Group Business Services (GBS) represents the engine room of the Bank, powering our operations by securing the technology, systems and processes that allow us to deliver exceptional, reliable services to our customers. In doing so, GBS stands at the core of our strategic journey, working to pave the way for our collective digital evolution.

Against the growing cloud of COVID-19, the year began with the successful completion of IT systems integration following our merger with Union National Bank (UNB) and the acquisition of Al Hilal Bank. As a result of meticulous planning and preparation, the banking systems were unified, while former UNB customers were transferred to ADCB systems, applications and digital banking platforms.

Despite the challenge of working remotely, the cross-functional integration teams worked tirelessly to ensure a smooth transition in just 38 hours with minimal disruption to systems and channels. More than one million customers now enjoy the benefits of ADCB’s convenient and highly efficient internet and mobile banking as well as a wide range of enhanced products and services.

OPERATIONAL CONTINUITY

As the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic became apparent, we rapidly moved to protect our employees’ health and safeguard our customers, while ensuring operational continuity. Within just a few days, we ensured that the majority of our employees had the facilities to work securely and safely from remote locations. We also established a secure virtual customer contact centre to support our more vulnerable customers.

Our swift response was as a result of our well-established Crisis Management Framework and detailed Business Continuity Plans, supported by our robust project management capabilities.

This enabled the rapid implementation of infrastructure upgrades and virtual desktop licences that ensured full-scale remote working in just two weeks. Where appropriate, we moved staff to alternative buildings to minimise interaction and meet all applicable health and safety measures.

Ultimately, we rolled out around 6,500 secure virtual desktops, enabled more than 7,000 users across our collaboration tools, distributed more than 800 laptops and desktop devices, and activated around 500 home-based contact centre staff via softphones and remote call recording.

Meanwhile, it was essential to ensure we maintained our key branches’ operations and that customers and staff were fully protected. We continually reviewed all health and safety arrangements and kept our premises secure and in compliance with government directives. This included a deep cleaning and sanitisation programme encompassing almost 155 buildings, all conducted out of working hours.

CONTINUING TRANSFORMATION TO DRIVE STRATEGIC PROGRESS

ADCB’s digital transformation strategy has driven our success and helped mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business. As a result of our advanced digital capabilities and a strong agile working culture, we were better able to overcome lockdown challenges and meet our customers’ evolving needs.

Our customer-centric digital transformation serves to empower the Bank in line with our new five-year corporate strategy. Working in close collaboration with all departments across ADCB, we continue to support and enhance efficiency and productivity, facilitating the delivery of products and services.

By scaling-up our data collection and analytics capabilities, we provide hyper-personalised experiences for our customers, tailoring our product releases to meet clients’ requirements and powering a data-driven strategic digital transformation.

This year, we delivered several digital initiatives to streamline and enhance the customer experience, promote efficiencies and drive the Bank’s performance.

We rolled out an enhanced wire transfer beneficiary registration system on our mobile internet banking (MIB), reducing the length of registration of new beneficiaries from two days to a single ‘tap’.

Elsewhere, we improved processes to reduce the time required to launch new products and services, including introducing a one-time transfer capability, removing the need to add beneficiaries.

Other improvements included near-instant credit card loan funds on the Hayyak app, as well as AMEX payments in AED and USD, new personal loan top-up features and user experience upgrades, such as Privacy Mode and Transaction History on our mobile banking app.

Meanwhile, we implemented a Global Payment Initiative (GPI) system that notifies remitters when the funds are credited to the beneficiary account. This was in response to feedback from customers who sought reassurance that their transfers were reaching beneficiary accounts.

As part of our ongoing technological development and engagement in 2020, ADCB became the first banking partner of Hub71, a global tech ecosystem located in Abu Dhabi. The partnership provides access to Hub71’s growing and dynamic ecosystem of start-ups, accelerators, investors, government, corporates, academic institutions and global tech companies.

This relationship provides a platform for the Bank to support Abu Dhabi’s future tech leaders and allows us to leverage Hub71’s fintech community to develop innovative solutions that will help us shape the future of banking.

Our digital marketing activities through social media continues to grow. In 2020, we surpassed our annual engagement targets for Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, engaging a growing number of people.

At the same time, our data scientists’ team continued to develop our digital analytics capabilities to enhance customer engagement.

Meanwhile, the ADCB website was recognised at the annual Webby Awards as a ‘Webby Honouree’ for the Best Homepage, ranking in the top 20% across more than 1,300 entries from over 70 countries.

SUPPORTING OUR PEOPLE

We value the opinions of our customers and our employees. Our people are some of the most talented in the industry and can use their insight and experience to fuel innovation across the Bank.

Understanding their concerns is also a vital part of building on our success. This year, we sought employee feedback though our Bank-wide Afkar programme that enabled all those working across ADCB to make suggestions and provide innovation ideas.

It is also important for us to ensure that our employees are engaged and satisfied. In 2020, we continued to achieve consistent improvements in our Net Promoter Scores, which measure customer experience and predicts business growth.

LOOKING AHEAD

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the economic landscape and supercharged the need for seamless, digital banking. Thanks to our long-term digital strategy, we have already ensured our customers benefit from smooth, efficient, intuitive and secure digital services. We are well-positioned to meet this new age of hyper-efficiency.

We will continue to provide the speed and security expected by our clients and colleagues as we further develop and refine our IT platforms and technological support. Above all, we will continue to leverage our digital capabilities to elevate the customer experience, adding greater value for all our stakeholders.