In this special episode of Below the Fold, recorded live at the Emirates NBD FinTech Summit, we sit down with Saud Al Dhawyani, Chief Platforms Officer at Emirates NBD, to explore how the UAE’s leading bank is building next-gen digital infrastructure—while staying first in innovation. From Open Finance and AI to fintech partnerships and regulatory collaboration, Saud shares how Emirates NBD is transforming banking from the inside out—platform by platform, product by product. 🎙️ Hosted by: Naveen Bharadwaj, CEO of Trescon
📡 In collaboration with @BelowTheFoldPodcast @launchfoundryai @datewithtech @emiratesnbd @dubaifintechsummit @dubaiaicampus
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[00:00:00] Hello, welcome to this episode of Date with Tech, brought to you by Trescon in association with Below the Fold and Launch Foundry. I'm your host, Naveen Bharadwaj, and I have with me my guest, my friend, Saud Al Dhawyani, who's the Chief Platforms Officer at, ~uh, ~Emirates, NBD Bank sa Welcome to Date with Tech. Thank you.
Thank you for having me. Most welcome. So we'll be talking about a bunch of different things, of course, banking, financial innovation, inclusion and whatnot. But before we get there, I want to give our audience a flavor of,~ uh,~ solve the Human that's no titles, no companies, but saw the human. So tell us a little bit about where did you grow up, what did you study, some of your passions, your hobbies, your habits, and lastly.
How did you end up with Emirates, NBD? How did you take up, you know, platform's leading role? Wow. Lot of questions. Okay. So, so let me start. ~I'm, ~I'm an Emirati. I,~ um,~ from an Emirati family. I grown up here in Dubai, ~in ~in Jumeira, Jamira,~ the,~ the second. And,~ uh,~ I'm the eldest in [00:01:00] my,~ uh,~ from my other, ~I have, ~I have younger brothers and a sister.
And in our families, they were like really high expectations from me being ~the, ~the,~ uh,~ eldest. So, ~uh, ~I spent a lot of time,~ um,~ in, in learning things at school and et cetera, and I was among one of the best, always like, ~uh, ~one of the best students there ~at, ~at school. And that was encouraged as well by, by my parents in the same time also, ~I was, ~I was an active athlete, so ~I, ~I love sport.
I love sport and different kind of sports. I run, I played football, I play, I played football as well in one of the clubs,~ uh,~ here in Dubai. Al was the club over. Wow. The Golden team. Nice. So, ~um, ~and then after school, I went to one of the,~ uh,~ colleges here. ~Mm-hmm. ~Higher colleges of technology.
And,~ uh,~ when I grown up, I,~ um,~ I liked,~ uh,~ building things. ~I, ~I loved,~ uh,~ technology. I liked creating things. And I still remember as well when I was,~ um,~ I. ~Maybe, ~maybe 11 ~or ~or 10. I had,~ uh,~ I had my first keyboard and ~I was, ~I was trying to master typing as well, learning,~ uh, where the, ~where the different letters and Yeah.
Et cetera. And then started,~ uh,~ trying to understanding as well how computers work and how [00:02:00] technology evolved and et cetera. So I had that passion when I was young as well. So ~when I, ~when I went into the college, I decided. To study technology, mainly computer networking. And it was a nice program that gives,~ uh,~ basic exposure to programming and computer networks and gave me a solid foundation about technology.
In the same time, also, I was keen to learn about the,~ uh, uh, ~how to work for real companies. ~Um, ~I wanted to do that. So I started working at a very young age, I took a job in one of the local banks as well. Without~ uh, ~obtaining ~my, ~my graduation. But ~I had, ~I had the good exposure to technology and I still remember my first interview.
And then the guy said that,~ uh,~ I mean, how do you want us to hire someone? Without a degree. I told them, well, I mean, if I pass my, if I pass the interview, then you should hire me. Yeah. Okay. Not because of my graduation or the, which is valuable, but that's not the only, it. It was tough and,~ uh, uh, ~but it was a great experience.
I passed the interview and they were really impressed by by my [00:03:00] skills at that point in time, and,~ uh,~ knowledge and passion. I was young. Yeah. In my, I was 20, probably 20 where I got my, yeah, 22 now, so that was two years ago. It was probably 20 years ago. Yeah. I mean, just my age. And there, my, my journey in technology have,~ uh,~ started, evolved there from engineers and I took,~ uh,~ engineering,~ uh,~ manager at various roles and managed,~ uh,~ networking infrastructure, data center projects and different,~ uh,~ technology related projects.
And I moved also from one role to another. ~Mm-hmm. Various, ~various companies until one of the,~ uh,~ head hunters, actually, I met him today as well. Really? I met him just a few hours ago. ~Is he, ~is he offering you another,~ uh,~ executive role somewhere? Not really. Not really. He said Okay. So that seems that since I got you the job at EMBD, you never left.
I mean, are you still looking for something else? I told him, not really. And that means EB D's got a great culture. Exactly. Exactly. And they're also the bank, as you know, that the bank is evolving nicely and, ~uh. ~And the bank had given me a great opportunity to grow and to manage various,~ uh,~ teams,~ uh,~ different areas, be part [00:04:00] of,~ uh,~ interesting, fantastic projects across,~ uh,~ across the group.
And one of the most important roles that I took at EMBD was the CTO. Yeah, I was the CTO for M-H-M-B-D. Nice. ~Um, ~and,~ uh,~ that gave me great exposure as well to, to the technology space and build my network and,~ uh,~ deliver many interesting things for M-S-M-B-D until,~ uh,~ two years ago, I took over the role of,~ uh,~ group Chief Platform Officer, which is another challenge for me, but an exciting role.
Fantastic. Yeah. This podcast is all about you, but I want to throw in just a minute. There's a lot of similarities between you and me and of course a couple of dissimilarities. I'll start with the dissimilarities. I did not pursue technology similarity, though is I'm a computer science engineer. I worked for a bank, actually, I got a job at HSBC.
I can name it. Before I was a graduate. I was also working quite early as a teenager. I was also among some of the leading kids in the classroom, although people didn't necessarily like me for that because I was teachers, but mischievous teachers spent. Right. I can relate. Right. Relate so ex. Exactly. So when you were speaking, I'm thinking, is this my life?
Another [00:05:00] dissimilarity though is,~ uh,~ football. So I was bad in sports, so I know my friends never wanted me in their team. They wanted me in their team for all other things minus sports, right? So maybe I could learn,~ uh,~ a thing or do in football from you. But going back to you as a group chief platform officer from,~ um,~ being a CTO, I think this is an interesting time, right?
Because the technology landscape is evolving so rapidly banking system is also transforming so rapidly. Emirates NBD is one of the leading banks here. So you can't be seen as,~ uh,~ being the second, you always have to be seen as. First, the first to try new things, the first to launch new platforms. How's that working?
And,~ uh,~ what type of,~ uh,~ immersive, intuitive platforms are you guys focusing on? So it is, I mean, ~as, ~as I mentioned since I moved,~ uh,~ to em, BI never thought about. ~Uh, ~moving elsewhere because my personal beliefs and the organization belief system are matching. And this is around,~ uh,~ being always competitive and,~ uh,~ try to be always first.
Because if you're not first, then ~uh, ~you are no one. You are not there. Okay, [00:06:00] it's either first store, no nowhere. So this is something that ~I, ~I truly believe in,~ uh,~ personally, and this is something that the bank has role embraces. And,~ uh,~ this role is a great,~ uh,~ a great role actually. It offered me a,~ an,~ an opportunity to be ~very, ~very closer.
I. To our business colleagues. It gives me also an opportunity to deliver things to our customers. My previous role as a CTO was more of,~ uh,~ an engineering role at the back. I mean, what people would say. He's the guy ~in the, ~in the garage or ~in the, ~in the dark room. Yeah. It's naturally, it's a comfortable thing for me.
I'm an introvert. Yeah. So it was, ~uh. ~It was an, it was a good, it was good for me, but I needed to take a street challenge and be closer to business and also see in real life myself, the impact of what is being delivered and deal with the,~ uh,~ stakeholders. Orchestrate delivery with them, deal with their day-to-day problems rather than receive these problems through an intermediator.
[00:07:00] Yeah. Because a lot could,~ uh,~ could happen through the translation. I mean, you lose the,~ um, ~the emotional part of it when you talk to the end customer directly. True. True, because you're hearing it from the horse's mouth. ~Yes, yes, ~yes. Right. You can assess that, the emotion, the psychology, the idea behind the feedback or import or inception, et cetera.
Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Very good. Now, I know that one of the things that,~ uh,~ most bankers are now talking about is,~ uh,~ open banking, which is completely revolutionizing the way. Banking was conducted, or banks as we've known it. Are you guys doing something in the open banking space regardless of that? What is your take generally on,~ uh,~ on open banking sort?
Yeah. O open banking or what? ~Uh, ~the recent evolution of,~ uh,~ of open banking now, which is,~ uh,~ open finance ~is an interesting, ~is an interesting space. At EMBD, we started experimenting with this back in 2013, 2014, if I remember correctly as well. And at that point in time, it was always viewed as,~ uh,~ one of the,~ uh,~ technology and digital enablement.
[00:08:00] To initiative. Okay. It's,~ uh,~ you need to build those,~ uh,~ APIs in order to integrate with partners, suppliers,~ and,~ and potentially as well ~some of the, ~some of the customers. At that point in time. It took us time to mature the technology that supports. ~Uh, ~open banking. Open finance. It took us time since we started, but we reached into the situation where we recognize something which is much more important, that open banking and open finance is a business transformation opportunity rather than a technology or pure ~digital, ~digital,~ uh, ~challenge or a space.
It's about how do you look at the organization~ a, a, ~a wider. Ecosystem APIs and those open APIs are just enablers. Absolute, absolutely. And also. ~Uh, ~such,~ uh, uh, ~APIs could give you the opportunity even to reconsider you a business and operating model within that ecosystem. Yeah. How would you,~ uh,~ where would you,~ uh,~ where would you play when, with regards to,~ uh, uh, ~the,~ uh,~ supply chain and how would you distribute your services ~and, ~and [00:09:00] products ~to the, ~to the customers?
How would you manufacture them? Yeah. Are you going to manufacture them traditionally alone or actually you're gonna co manufacture them and collaborate within the ecosystem? And an intelligent ~supply ~supply chain. And then also how would you embed,~ uh,~ embed the intelligent layer when you distribute services to your customers?
It's an interesting space and,~ uh,~ EMBD is actively investing in this,~ uh,~ in this area. And,~ uh,~ recently as well, collaborating with the regulators in order to ensure that,~ uh,~ the model that,~ uh, uh, ~we are adopting here in the UE is one of the leading. Leading models and based on the learning from,~ uh,~ from the different countries that have started with open bi open banking and open finance area.
Yeah, I think collaboration with the regulatory is an interesting piece because you need the baseline and you also need the boundaries right now based on everything that you said. So that actually gives me so many different,~ uh,~ you know, thoughts. We can't unpack everything, but just a few. Again, touching on that open ranking.
Now in your position, I think banks typically are known to have legacy systems, but they want to make that [00:10:00] big switch. ~Uh, ~open finance, as you said, APIs and connectors to a lot of third parties. Your data, their data, what to give, what not to give. And then you've got the data privacy challenges, security issues at the edge because we notice that API security attacks or attacks at the API level is also increasing, right?
So how do you juggle between all these different things and make sure that you're giving. Your business and business stakeholders, the results that they want, you're making sure your customers feel comfortable with the platform being safe, secure privacy is not being impeded. And thirdly, because the landscape is changing so rapidly, how do you also make sure that you have that one foot in future?
So you don't have to redo everything. Yeah. And ~interesting, ~interesting question and tells me a lot about your study. I mean, definitely you have done a lot of computer science. ~Uh, ~so, so for us ~as, ~as EMBD as I mentioned, I mean ~we, ~we've been focusing a lot on the technical foundation, but ~uh, ~recently we started looking at, open banking and open finance from a business and strategy,~ uh,~ strategy point,~ uh,~ point of view. And [00:11:00] the moment you start to looking ~at, ~at this,~ uh,~ at this area from,~ uh,~ strategy, business operating model you'll. Start~ uh, ~writing down many,~ uh,~ such relevant,~ uh,~ questions, which are, what is the impact on the customer journey?
What is the impact on the customer privacy? What are the, what is the cyber surface that I need to protect, watch, and protect? Yeah. Okay. You'll start asking all these questions be, but, because if you look at this as a technology, only a problem. You would not even come ~into, ~into these,~ uh,~ these questions in order to,~ uh, uh, ~to find solutions, you know, that, you know, before you start with a solution, you should have the right, you should frame the right question.
Yes. ~And, ~and I think now ~we, ~we have all these,~ uh,~ all these questions. We understand the areas that we would like to focus on and from my role as a group chief platform officer, one of the most important thing that I need to, should worry about here is to make sure that our platforms are,~ uh,~ exposing.
All their capabilities via APIs. ~Mm. ~[00:12:00] Okay. Making sure that the legacy platforms are transformed. And for the areas where at,~ uh,~ a transformation is,~ uh,~ let's say that has a limitation because I mean, there, there's a limitation to, depends ~on the, ~on the area that you are tackling is actually build,~ uh, ~different kind of adapters that would expose those rich,~ uh,~ APIs functionality.
So ~this is, ~this is important. Second. Making sure that the platforms are secured. Three scalable. Four resilient. Yeah. Because now you are not only saving your own channels, but talking about third parties that would inter interact with you, and you need to support the volume. You need to make sure that,~ uh,~ these connections are secured.
You need to make sure that also you are resilient, you're always available, and these are some of the key priorities that, that I look at ~when, ~when designing platforms, running platforms at EMBD. So intelligent integration, security by design, scalable. On demand and resilient by nature, if that's how I could [00:13:00] summarize the platforms you guys are building.
Yeah. Yes. You could be an architect. Trust me. Now I wanna switch a little more,~ uh,~ from there on. Right. ~Um, ~what role do fintechs actually play in all of this, and what does the future of FinTech mean to either you personally or Emirates in media as a group? ~Uh, ~so. Yeah. This is a, this is an interesting question because I mean, at the beginning, once this FinTech term ~started, ~started emerging, everybody thought about,~ uh,~ those companies as pure technology plate, okay?
Correct. Now, what happened, because the legacy technology providers. Unfortunately, banks are the main companies ~in this, ~in this space. We're actually pushing back on some of this innovation, and they were very slow in adopting some of the impressive solutions that were coming from the fintechs. Some of those fintechs started entering the territory of the banks of banks.
Because, and banks had all the opportunity to embrace at one point in time yes. To adopt some of these solutions, but they were very slow. [00:14:00] Many of the banks were very slow. Yeah. Running on mainframes, legacy technologies and et cetera. ~And, ~and ~uh, ~by definition, banks were slow, heavily regulated, and it was not easy.
So some of those,~ uh,~ fintechs started getting into the space of,~ uh,~ of banks. Yeah. And then here you have two kind of responses. Some banks thought that this is a threat. Yes. And they started finding every single opportunity to block them. The,~ uh,~ insecurities. Insecurities and,~ uh,~ block and not working with them.
Yeah. Try to fight back and et cetera. They were in denial. ~Mm-hmm. ~And other organizations ~and, ~and here I'm proudly to say EMBD. Look at this as a great opportunity. Why not? Why don't we learn from those,~ uh, uh, uh, ~startups, those,~ uh,~ startups and those players? Why don't we learn from them? Why don't we actually partner with them and try to bridge some of the gaps that we might have?
Why don't we find a great collaboration opportunities in order? To enrich the entire ecosystem, and that's what EMBD is doing. And I believe that FinTech will play a great role [00:15:00] in transforming the financial sector here globally. And here even ~in the, ~in the UAE and the winners will be the ones that really recognize the opportunities,~ the,~ the collaboration opportunities.
With those FinTech players. Absolutely. I love the way you said it because here we are at Dubai FinTech Summit and ~uh, ~running the special episode of Date With Tech. The theme of Dubai FinTech Summit has been FinTech for All, and you cannot be for all if you're not partnering, if you're not working with that collaborative or ecosystem mindset.
I'm glad that ENBD took that early mature decision of reaching out and partnering with the FinTech community and not being a. A late reactor who by compulsion adopts to change. Right. ~Uh, ~on that front. ~Uh, ~any examples, recent or early examples that you can share of,~ uh,~ NBDs partnership with those startups as well as the possible good, bad, and ugly that might have come out because not everything might have succeeded or,~ uh,~ turned out the way that you guys wanted to, right?
Yeah. This is,~ uh,~ this is,~ uh,~ interesting and good actually. Of course through this journey you have to embrace as well. An element of learning. Yeah. [00:16:00] Okay. So you're gonna go ~through, ~through,~ uh, ~through this journey and you're gonna learn a lot, and it's an opportunity ~to, ~to improve and,~ uh,~ and,~ uh,~ become much, much better.
In some of the successful partnerships that we've been having is,~ uh,~ is ~um, ~is with a company called Ipi Uhhuh. I mean, ~they, ~they do a great work in term of,~ uh, ~identification of beneficiaries. And recognizing the ultimate payment,~ uh, ~beneficiaries. They play,~ uh,~ a role in the cross-border payments,~ uh, uh, ~transactions.
And also apro is a fantastic,~ uh, uh, ~FinTech as well. They play in the area of,~ uh,~ the,~ uh, ~K-Y-C-K-Y-C is a, is an interesting space because banks. Being a heavily regulated, the entity relies on a lot of authentic data to identify a customer. Yes. By the way, KYC is not your customer. Yeah. Stanford can know your customer.
So we rely heavily on authenticated sources to identify the customer, and those guys are actually given a great opportunity to banks with the rich authentic data. Which makes it so easier for the customer to interact and transact with the bank in a digital manner without the need [00:17:00] of,~ uh,~ back and forth,~ uh,~ paper,~ uh,~ application based on papers, multiple signatories and ~uh, ~and et cetera.
Fantastic. And know, I'm proud to tell you, I don't know if you know this, but,~ um,~ we launched a startup initiative. Called as FinTech World Cup last year, which is a startup pitch competition which travels around the world. And the grand finale always takes place here at ~the, ~the Dubai FinTech Summit was a winner in our Singapore qualifiers.
One of the qualifiers and Apro was the winner of the grand finale last year. So I'm happy that,~ uh,~ we were able to identify those startups, which Emirates and really has also identified as your partners in change. Right. AI again, it used to be a buzzword, artificial intelligence a few years ago, but today everybody's embracing it.
And I, I know of a lot of different initiatives that you guys have embraced from a platform standpoint and from everything that you do, where does AI fit in and,~ uh,~ what type of priorities does it come and help you solve? Yeah,~ uh,~ okay, so, so AI been around ~for, ~for a while and it took,~ uh,~ different shapes and,~ um,~ the recent shape.
That we know is around machine learning and generative ai. I mean, if you [00:18:00] look at it within the technology landscape, it is not a standalone or an independent domain by itself. Ideally, AI is,~ uh,~ would fall into different domains. For example, I have multiple platforms ~at ~at Emerge, MBD from payments core banking.
Trade, finance, treasury,~ and,~ and enterprise systems. There is a space for AI in each domain. Okay. And the idea is actually understanding the use case or the opportunity of ai, and we identified lots of great opportunities in the area of. Payments in term of optimize the payments routing in the area of compliance in term of,~ uh,~ be much more intelligent in term of,~ uh,~ compliance related decision in the area of,~ uh, uh, ~even core banking.
~Uh, ~optimize liquidities and, ~uh. ~And however, also in my previous role, I have,~ uh,~ a great success story around, around AI because,~ uh,~ there we were one of the first companies that introduced,~ uh,~ GitHub copilot really, and Yes, globally. And actually we've been even,~ uh,~ recognized by Satya Anal, the CEO [00:19:00] E of Microsoft.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That we've been among the early adopters. Wow. And I think ~we've, ~we've been the first here ~in the, ~in the Middle East. And I can tell you based on a personal experience as well, personally,~ and,~ and with the team, it was a great experience. It was a great experience. It was,~ uh,~ an interesting journey.
He, after, I think after a year, or probably less than a year, we've managed to recognize about 20%, 20%,~ uh,~ productivity. Wow. And also what we have done, like we have like our,~ uh,~ happiness index ~mm-hmm. ~Score for the teams. And actually the teams that are using copilot,~ uh, ~they were happier. Nice.
We use copilot as well. You do. Right, right, right. So ~it, ~it is interesting, and actually we have not stopped there. We are even now adopting the,~ uh,~ recent generations of those,~ uh,~ of the copilot in order to enrich the developer experience, making sure that developers are much faster, productive, and also deliver on quality.
You know, that those are the guys that are always under tremendous pressure in order to deliver. Now we had given them this nice tool in order to help them. Yeah. We [00:20:00] still demand a lot from our developers. Well, you know what sa, you just beautifully conveyed the fact that AI for ENBD is cutting across people, processes, and technology.
Right? It is everywhere. ~Uh, ~it is everywhere. Exactly. AI everywhere. Because even the use cases that you give, be it trade finance or core banking or cross border payment, settlement or user friendliness for their internal staff, and I'm pretty sure there are applications. That are front facing, customer facing also.
So you are using AI in pretty much everything that you do. That's amazing. Threats and BD priorities for the next three years? No, three years is probably too long for the next one year. Okay. I mean, we're gonna continue modernizing our,~ uh,~ our platform, our technology stack. I mean, this is a journey that we've started a few years ago and we became much better in doing that and recognize that this is a great investment.
So we're gonna continue doing that at the, ~um. ~At the business front, we are going to definitely leverage on such an investment and focus on payments. We're gonna focus on,~ uh,~ S-M-E-S-M-E ~is ~is a [00:21:00] sector here in DUE and I think it is not well saved by banks. It is part of,~ uh,~ one business growth.
~Mm-hmm. ~But actually it's part of,~ uh,~ the financial inclusion initiatives that, that ~we are, ~we are part of,~ uh,~ at. EMBD. ~Mm-hmm. ~Beyond that as well, sustainable finance e is something that,~ uh,~ it's a new area as well that we started focusing on and we've launched some successful products in ~this, ~this space play an active role in open finance is,~ uh,~ is one of the priority.
Continue our growth globally and in our~ uh, ~regional market like,~ uh,~ case Egypt. Interesting. I think I, at least I mentioned five, but. ~It's a, ~it's a long list. So domain expansion, geographical expansion, business evolution. So initiate, implement, innovate, impact, because again, you talked about sustainable financing, blended impact investment, so many of other things come in, right?
So before we conclude, there's just one thing because. At least a couple of times. You mentioned how Emirates NBD was the first to do something, but there is something about Emiratis, right? You want to be the first, right? The spirit of Emirates, the leadership, and [00:22:00] every single Emirati friend of mine that I have, including yourself, sa, you've got to be number one, right?
How do you guys. Make sure that this happens. And how is this, you carry on your sleeve, on your shoulder every single day, that positive mindset to be the number one and actually end up being number one in so many different aspects. Yes,~ uh,~ definitely. And actually ~what, ~what I would say here, we are really inspired by our leaders.
Yeah. Okay. Our leader,~ our,~ our president, our vice president, and,~ uh,~ and the leadership family here in the UE are great inspiration for all the Emirates. And,~ um, ~we carry this. And,~ um,~ this is, that's why, I mean, we believe that ~it's, ~it's either number one or nowhere. So we wake up every day.
Every morning be first, every day. You wanna be first? Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. There. ~Uh, ~the leadership here is not just an inspiration,~ um,~ for tis. They're actually an inspiration for a lot of the expats like me, who actually made UA their home. And you'd be surprised if they're also an inspiration for those that have never actually traveled in here, but they read about.
The practical real life stories, the inspiration, the motivation, the fact, the [00:23:00] growth of the UAE has been amongst the fastest when you compare to a lot of other countries, I think is,~ uh, ~is just a motivation for the entire mankind. So, so for the emti, you are for the footballer, you are for the geek programmer that you are for the chief platforms officer, that you are hats off to everything that you do at Emirates NBD and hats off to all our EM friends out there.
They actually drive people like us to also strive to get better and strive for excellence. Thank you for joining us here at ~uh, ~date With Tech. It's my pleasure. Thank you.