Joining me to discuss this is Hany Adel, banking expert and founder and CEO of Bankawi, Egypt's leading financial awareness platform, and he's also a staunch advocate for financial inclusion, fintech innovation, and digital banking transformation, thus helping simplify finance for millions across the MENA region.
Good to have you with us.
And starting off, when you look at the financial services sector today, how deep is the transformation that we are seeing?
Are fintech and digital innovation simply improving banking services, or are they fundamentally changing what banking means?
What do you think?
Um, first of all, let me, uh, thank you for being, uh, uh, hosting me today.
Uh, and let's start with, uh, what, what the, what the, the tech technology is taking us, uh, in the new era.
Uh, actually, the technology and financial services and Pentex.
I reshaping the, uh, the, the, the ways banking providing their services, reshaping the, the main concept or the mean of uh uh of the banking services.
Banks were not being as before traditionally as the place where you go to deposit your money and start lending or taking a loan or a credit card or something like that because now there's a lot of service providers who are doing the same services or providing the same services like banks and you Using digital platforms or digital channels which which became now more easier for people to deal with, more close for people to handle their daily needs and daily transactions, so Thumbtex or financial services now became reshaping the concept of the banking services.
Mhm.
And, and you know, as Egypt moves towards digital banks, instant payments, and we can see this a lot, mobile wallets and more app-based services, what do you think the bank of the future, let's say, will look like?
Will branches still matter or will customer relationships increasingly be built through digital channels?
In my point of view, we will be watching a hybrid module mixing between digital services, the digital channels, and very, very different kinds of branches.
I'm calling it boutique branches.
It will be a very small, small advisory unit.
It will not offer operational experience.
It will not offer cash.
Experience it will offer advisory or relationship management centers that will offer services for a very special segment, let's say high worth clients or sophisticated, sophisticated clients who need to sit with a banker who can guide them or advise them.
In managing their portfolios, so the, the, the banks in the very, very soon future, it will be mixed between digital channels and digital platforms for the day to day transactions and very small advisory centers or or branches for special segments like the hyper clients.
Mhm.
And another very important point is that we're seeing, you know, AI and data analytics in specific, uh, we're seeing that they're becoming central to financial services from customer engagement to credit assessment and risk management.
Where do you, uh, see the biggest opportunity for banks and fintech companies in Egypt?
Is it better service, better lending decisions, fraud prevention, or reaching underserved customers?
It provides all of that, but the main, the main concern, it will be the very, uh, very good tool to understand the real need of customers.
And to offer the specific uh products or service that covers these needs.
I mean, if you are, uh, if, if you are a traveler, if you are a traveler lover, lover, you would like to travel during the year for 5 or 6 years, 6 times during the year, um, it will, it will not be proper to offer you uh uh special discounts or special points for grocery.
It's better to offer you uh uh special miles or air miles or discounts on uh uh traveling products or traveling banking services, uh, that's in matching with the traveling uh uh behavior that uh for your behavior.
So this, this kind of uh customization or this kind of uh uh understanding the, the customer behavior.
Will be totally based on data analytics and understanding the way of or expecting the way that's developing the needs in the society, not only my customers, because every bank would like to increase their market share.
They would like to attract more clients.
From the market, so kind of these services like AI and data analytics will let the banks understand how to attract and how to define the right customers and to define the right service for the right customers.
Right, and, and, and reach is very important when we talk about this topic, and technology can expand access to these services as well, but access alone does not guarantee usage or trust, uh, from, from your work with Ben Kawi.
Would you agree that one of the biggest gaps today is financial awareness, uh, digital confidence, and understanding this whole idea?
Yeah, this is why we, we need uh uh organizations like Bankawi and other organizations that fill the gap between the banks and financial institutions and the society as well.
It's simply awareness and education.
If you succeeded to educate the society, increase the, um, their, their awareness, financial awareness, if you invested.
In helping them to understand and to feel comfortable and confident when dealing when dealing with the financial services and financial products, you will gain them.
You will attract them to deal with you.
So this is the case if you invest in.
If you invest in filling this gap between, you know, I'm always saying that banks are taking to talking to people like in a five star hotel while the society or the people are talking like sitting in a cafe, so there is a gap between the 5 star hotel and traditional cafe.
So you need to fill this gap.
This gap should be filled by, uh, media.
I blocks generally, um, and, and so on.
Mhm.
And, and, uh, how do you see the relationship between traditional banks, fintech companies, digital platforms and awareness of awareness platforms like Bankawi?
Every part is participating in this ecosystem by their rule, FinTex will not, will not success without traditional banks because the trust is coming from traditional banks.
The high volume of lending is coming from traditional banks.
So if the traditional bank is not offering.
Investments or financial lending to Fintech.
FinTexx will not be able to lend their customers, and both of them, they will need to reach customers, so they will need uh uh fancy organizations like they do to make this engagement between the is is kind of the final goal here and it's in the interest of everybody in the end.
Thank you very much, founder and CEO of Bankawi Hani Adel, thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today.
