Most Gulf banks are not doing enough to remain competitive against increasing global competition in the financial services sector, according to a visiting expert speaking on the sidelines of Bahrain’s annual MEFTEC event taking place in Manama today.
In particular, regional financial institutions should have a better grasp of the profiles of retail customers, and accordingly offer products based on risk, transaction behavior and customer preference. Such business intelligence would not only enable them to remain more globally competitive, it would allow them to realize increased profitability on an almost immediate basis.
“Banks in the Gulf need to do more around customer products to make them more profitable, and by investing in performance management solutions, they will be better able to predict financial performance.” said Laurence Trigwell, Senior Financial Services Industry Director, with global software provider Cognos.
Cognos provides solutions to many of the region’s largest and most advanced organizations, including many in the financial services space, such as Riyadh Bank (KSA), National Commercial Bank (KSA), and Emirates Bank (UAE).
MEFTEC annually brings to the region many of the world’s biggest and most well known IT suppliers to the banking and finance sector. Joining Cognos at this year’s event are Microsoft, HP, and Reuters, among others.
Taking place 12 and 13 February 2007 in Manama, Bahrain, the MEFTEC exhibition and conference is held under the auspices of the Central Bank of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
About Cognos:
Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.
Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization’s ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions -- How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? – and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.
Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries, and its top 100 enterprise customers consistently outperform market indexes. Cognos performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.
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Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
