Digital banking used to mean a great looking app. Now it means AI agents actually managing digital assets inside the bank itself. The company behind many of this region's digital banks just partnered to build one of the first authentic digital asset banks in the world. Joining me is Omar Mansur, Managing Director for APAC at Codebase Technologies and Corporate Member of the MENA Fintech Association. Omar, welcome to Wall Street to Mena.
Thank you so much for having me.
You have helped launch over 65 digital banks. What is the one thing that always makes or breaks a launch?
Every bank is a different story — it entirely depends on focus. We have built banks in under six months from scratch, and we have built banks that have taken more than a couple of years to go live. It is the focus that makes or breaks a bank. Priorities change halfway through. If you are unfocused for the first six months, things end up changing in the middle of the process. So focus is the answer.
A bank wants to launch from scratch right now. What do you tell them to build first?
Customer journey. That is the most important thing — not the technology. Once you figure out where the money is coming from, where the data is coming from, and where you see yourself in the next four or five years, the technology itself will follow.
If you are launching a digital bank today, what would you do differently from banks launched five years ago?
Five years ago, the whole craze was being digital. Everyone said I need to be digital, paperless, branchless — the branch should be in your pocket. Today, being digital is the bare minimum. I would actually start building embedded finance, AI agent capabilities, and other supporting services from the beginning — rather than bolting them on later.
What is the real line between a bank building its own tech versus embedding someone else's?
Banks should build what makes them unique. If it is unique — that is their IP, that is what makes them different. Build it in-house. What you should not build in-house is anything that is commoditised and can be bought from other players. That is what makes the distinction important.
AI is already making lending decisions on your platform. Do banks actually trust that?
This is a bit of a grey area. Banks do trust it — but it depends region to region. For smaller ticket items they trust AI to an extent, but it is never fully handed over or straight-through. The point is that banks should not be afraid of AI replacing the credit officer. They should focus on making that credit officer ten times more capable with AI. Think of AI as a very capable, competent child. You have to check its work before you do anything with it.
So validation and auditing are the key human inputs.
Exactly. Validate, verify, and check whatever AI is giving you. A lot of people who use ChatGPT or Claude for their work — they take the output but do not read it properly. And when they present it to stakeholders, they get caught by surprise because something contradicts. That is what they call AI hallucinating. If the humans in the bank can question, validate, and audit the output, it becomes far less likely to go wrong.
You are expanding fast in Malaysia. Why is APAC moving faster than some Gulf markets right now?
You cannot compare apples to apples — it is a different market entirely. The difference is in the attitude and the ambition. It is far easier to iterate and experiment in APAC compared to here, because many banks going through digital transformation in the Gulf have to navigate legacy systems and bureaucratic processes. In APAC, it is far easier to be bold. But that does not mean the Gulf does not have ambition — it absolutely does. Once the strategic initiatives align here, they both go very fast. And from a new tech perspective — if I compare just these two markets, I would say APAC. But if I look at the overall picture, Latin America is also moving very fast. They have the volume, they have the demand, and people are looking for more innovative products that are cheaper and faster.
What has being part of the MFTA community actually given you?
Working in Dubai and in the fintech space, especially in markets moving this fast, you do not get time to network and socialise in the normal way. The beauty of the MFTA community is that it compresses all of those conversations. You get to meet like-minded individuals who you can learn from, bounce ideas off, and get inspired by — all at the same time, rather than messaging people on LinkedIn or meeting them coincidentally at a dinner somewhere. The access it provides is genuinely valuable.
Thank you so much, Omar.
Pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
