BIOS boosts Takaful Emarat's growth

Source: BIOS. Dominic Docherty, Founder and MD,
BIOS Middle East (left) and Mohammad AlHawari,
Executive Board Member, Takaful Emarat-Insurance (right).

Takaful Emarat, UAE's premier provider of shari'ah-compliant life and health insurance, has enhanced its infrastructure with BIOS, a UAE-based system integrator and cloud computing specialist.

Dubai-based Takaful Emarat's tech refresh replaced much of its legacy IT infrastructure, allowing the company to remain competitive in a challenging marketplace. Key among Takaful Emarat's requirements was an in-country cloud infrastructure, which could leverage various technologies for a complex IT environment.  Takaful Emarat chose to work with BIOS' in-country cloud, CloudHPT.

Mohammad Alhawari, Takaful Emarat's MD and Executive Board Member commented: "This is a very exciting time for Takaful Emarat as we continue focus on growing our business in tandem with accelerating our digital and online capabilities as we access new customer markets.

"Our investment in technology is central to this objective and, will give us a competitive edge to strengthen our market position, as a leading UAE provider of innovative insurance products and services. From a customer perspective, our new IT infrastructure will also enable our business to provide optimal value through improved business efficiencies and enhanced customer service support. We will continue to invest in our business to drive growth and I look forward to reporting new initiatives in due course."

Dominic Docherty, Chairman, BIOS agreed, saying, "Even in traditional sectors such as insurance, customers expect modern technological capabilities. Strategic positioning through superior technology is critical for Takaful Emarat's continued success."

Takaful Emarat's new technology includes a complete infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) package, which features hosting for Takaful's core insurance application of Oracle and critical services such as the file server, the contact centre. BIOS will migrate Takaful Emarat's email Office 365 setup, with complete email security and archiving provided through Mimecast. These critical improvements will increase Takaful Emarat's operational efficiency with BIOS' powerful platform.

BIOS is also building a disaster recovery solution that replicates workloads at Takaful Emarat's offices on their old hardware. This provides further cost savings on infrastructure, while lowering risk and improving industry compliance.

As with any technological upgrade, information security was a major concern for Takaful Emarat. To protect their assets, BIOS leveraged CloudHPT, which offers the region's first security information and event management (SIEM)-protected cloud with 24x7 security operations centre (SOC) services. CloudHPT is also fully protected by 1TB of anti-distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection, which no other local cloud service vendor provides, BIOS said.

Built on Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), CloudHPT is the only Cisco-powered cloud in the Middle East. This secure platform is supported by BIOS' 24x7 network operations centre, which monitors all infrastructure around the clock.

Lalitha Prasad Rao, COO, Takaful Emarat said: "Our technology refresh is a critical investment for our business. It will improve daily operations and reduce IT spend by increasing efficiency through technological improvement, offering us a key market advantage over our in-region competition."

Meethaq introduces Internet banking

Meethaq, the pioneer of Islamic banking in Oman from Bank Muscat, has launched Internet banking services for retail and corporate customers. The 24x7 service is available in English. 

Meethaq retail customers can make local fund transfers, access account balances, pay bills and manage standing instructions with Internet banking among other services. Corporate clients can also create workflows for validating access and authorisations. Corporate clients can further check the status of letters of credit, letters of guarantee and bills for collection.

Sulaiman Al Harthy, Deputy Chief Executive Officer – Islamic Banking, said: “Meethaq is proud to launch the Internet banking service featuring the latest technology as part of the bank’s strategy to empower customers to perform frequent transactions with convenience and security. Complementing the government's efforts in creating a digital society, the enhanced online banking service emphasises Meethaq commitment in providing secure electronic services which spell convenience to customers, thereby consolidating its position as the preferred Islamic banking service provider in the Sultanate.

“Meethaq is committed to invest on state-of-the-art technologies to further increase efficiency and improve customer service. With emphasis on competitive channels and new products to cater to various sectors, Meethaq aims to take the lead in technology-driven products and services, including electronic payment and web-based services, in tune with the banking requirements of Oman’s young and tech-savvy generation.”

Meethaq Internet banking ensures all transactions are secured with multiple validations.To access internet banking, Meethaq customers require their user ID and password using an on-screen keyboard; a captcha on the logon screen, as well as one-time password (OTPs) through SMS and a physical token. 

Meethaq offers a full suite of Islamic banking products and services, including savings and current accounts, home and auto finance, credit cards and mobile banking. 

Interested?

Retail customers can register online, without the need to fill forms or visit a branch. 

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank forges ahead with innovation via IBM partnership

In line with its strategy to digitise its products and services for an enhanced customers' experience, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank will fundamentally transform how it interacts and provides services to customers by building a new Digital Studio with IBM. The studio will be the first of its kind in the region.

The move is expected to fast-track development of digital innovation projects across the bank, including mobile banking iOS apps built on IBM Bluemix and IBM MobileFirst, enabling it to address competition from fintechs. The bank is also building a multidisciplinary digital team that will include experts from IBM Design and IBM Interactive Experience, the industry's largest hybrid digital agency and consultancy. The IBM experts will work with ADIB to create personalised and engaging digital experiences such as new mobile banking apps for consumers.

Sagheer Mufti, Chief Operating Officer, ADIB said: "ADIB aims to be the best digital bank in the UAE and the region and is continuously investing in cutting edge technologies to enhance customer experience and introduce innovative products and solutions to meet the evolving needs of its customers. In line with our core values of simplicity and mutual benefit, we are continuously looking for ways to foster innovation to deliver greater value and superior customer experience.

"The introduction of a digital studio at ADIB means we now have access to a team of dedicated IBM digital experts with proven experience designing compelling financial services and solutions that will work hand in hand with our professional team to make it easier for our customers to use our products and services and seamlessly manage their financial affairs. This studio will also play a major role in driving the various initiatives and projects across the bank to accelerate its digital transformation."

Bluemix – IBM's cloud platform – allows developers to accelerate the deployment of next-generation apps that capture the disruptive potential of cognitive computing, analytics and IoT. The cloud platform will enable ADIB to accelerate the development and deployment of these next-generation apps that leverage these innovations to offer clients a truly differentiated digital experience.

"As companies transform, it's essential to address the systemic cause of what's standing in the way of change. IBM has created a new type of design thinking that brings together product management, engineering and design teams to deliver iconic user experiences for clients," said Amr Refaat, General Manager, IBM Middle East and Pakistan. "We are working with ADIB to help them craft the entire user experience by understanding users, exploring concepts, rapid prototyping and evaluating with users and diverse stakeholders."

The Bank will also deploy the IBM MobileFirst for iOS Trusted Advisor App, allowing their financial advisors to easily and securely access and manage client portfolios from their iPads. The app empowers advisors to address the full gamut of client needs, from testing recommendations against sophisticated modelling tools all the way to complete, secure transactions. Powered by analytics, the Trusted Advice app provides predictive information that enables advisors to gain quick insight for devising client scenarios and conduct more interactive client planning sessions. Using their iPads, advisors can share graphic-rich data with clients for more engaging, personalised presentations that can be delivered wherever they meet with clients.​

Etihad Airways will leverage Adobe solutions to understand passengers better

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, has a new strategic partnership with Adobe that will enhance the airline’s capabilities to create tailored offerings for its guests through a deeper understanding of their travel preferences and how they would like to engage with the airline.

With Adobe Marketing Cloud and Creative Cloud, the airline group and its partners are empowered to create a secure, cost effective digital guest experience. Additionally, the technology will enhance the airlines’ digital marketing capabilities to provide tailored and personalised services across the globe.

Etihad Airways and its partners will use Adobe’s capabilities across Guest Experience, Global Loyalty, Cargo, Direct Sales, Marketing, Social Media and other areas of their businesses. Adobe’s solutions will enable superior digital experiences such as full self-service capabilities using digital devices. It provides greater convenience for guests as they interact with Etihad Airways and its businesses on their chosen device.

Robert Webb, Chief Information and Technology Officer at Etihad Airways, said: “This technology will entirely revolutionise the digital experience for our guests as well as the business as a whole. This investment in Adobe will allow us to enable a truly superior and seamless guest experience.

“As we continue to partner with world-class technology leaders, we’re working to ensure a remarkable experience for our guests, right from initial contact, through their journey and beyond.”

ADEKA Singapore takes on virtualisation to save a million Singapore dollars

Source: Adeka Singapore website.

ADEKA Singapore, the food and chemical manufacturing arm of ADEKA Corporation, makes halal processed oil products*.

The company had been adding physical servers to its IT infrastructure over the years, and deploying each server in multiple roles.

Nigel Lim, IT Manager, ADEKA Singapore said that it had come to the point where a change to one application could cause repercussions to the entire infrastructure. “Our infrastructure was not in a good state and we had issues with implementing new applications as we had to cram applications into the same server. Even our vendors and system integrators were very wary of making changes to our servers,” he said.

Virtualisation was the best solution. After careful consideration, ADEKA Singapore decided to deploy Microsoft System Center 2012 along with Windows Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V to virtualise its physical servers.

With the built-in monitoring features and automated provisioning of servers provided by the Microsoft solutions, ADEKA Singapore can now handle its IT infrastructure with just two staff members. It also has better visibility and control over its assets, improved workload management and better insights that help its IT team to address problems more quickly.

One of ADEKA's key concerns was implementing cost effective disaster recovery. Should ADEKA's physical servers fail, the business can still access key functions in the cloud, ensuring that operations stay up. It is considering using Hyper-V to make backups of virtual resources frequently, allowing the company to make use of a minutes-old backup should an error occur.

The deployment has already helped ADEKA Singapore save close to a million Singapore dollars to date. The company is expected to reap further cost savings of between S$250,000 to S$350,000 per year over the next five years.

"ADEKA Singapore is the perfect example of an organisation that has managed to transform their operations with Microsoft’s solutions. The combination of virtualisation with the use of the cloud allows the company’s IT team to worry less about their physical IT assets and instead focus on delivering greater value to the organisation,” said Joey Tan, Cloud and Enterprise Business Group Leader, Microsoft Singapore.

*A sister company, Malaysian subsidiary ADEKA FOODS (ASIA), obtained halal certification in Malaysia in November 2014.