Arab Bank: Revolutionizing App Development and Innovation with Google Cloud

Arab Bank, headquartered in Amman, Jordan, is a leading financial institution with more than 600 branches across five continents. The bank offers a wide range of financial products and services for individuals, corporations, and other financial institutions, including consumer banking, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. With 2020 assets of $54.4 billion, Arab Bank is publicly held and listed on the Amman Stock Exchange. It serves customers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, a market with significant growth opportunities due to a large unbanked population and a high interest in digital tech capabilities.

Arab Bank, a leading financial institution in the Middle East, recognized the need to innovate and modernize its services to maintain its market position and attract new customers. Despite its strong presence in the market, the bank faced challenges in responding quickly to the growing consumer market and the small and midsize enterprise (SME) sector. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where Arab Bank operates, has a largely unbanked population, with a significant portion interested in new digital tech capabilities. The bank also had to deal with legacy systems and applications, which made it difficult to release new features and functionalities frequently. Furthermore, Arab Bank had to navigate regulatory constraints such as data residency rules in the countries where it operates.

To overcome these challenges, Arab Bank adopted Google Cloud based on its agility, security, cost, and constant innovation. The bank introduced a new way of working by defining a customized agile development methodology. It utilized Apigee, a Google product, as an API layer to connect the bank’s digital ecosystem to the outside world. Google Anthos was identified as a suitable platform for deploying cloud-native solutions, which became the main platform to modernize apps faster and establish operational consistency across them. Anthos was instrumental in speeding up and supporting new digital customer journeys such as mobile customer onboarding, mortgage app, instant loan digital journey, and others. Arab Bank also introduced Arabi Pay, an innovative payment app that allows customers to transfer payments through social apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

• The adoption of Google Cloud has significantly transformed Arab Bank's operations. It has enabled the bank to accelerate innovation and achieve digital relevance with all its customer segments. The bank has been able to respond quickly to the growing consumer market and the SME sector by delivering new applications and rapid service. The use of Google Anthos has allowed the bank to modernize apps faster and establish operational consistency across them. The introduction of Arabi Pay has provided a seamless and innovative payment solution for customers. Furthermore, Google Cloud has become crucial to Arab Bank’s innovation, integrations, and speed to market, supporting key capabilities and programs like DevOps. The platform has also helped the bank improve its internal security practices.

• App development process compressed from one year to about three months

• More than 80 percent of active retail banking customers in Jordan now use mobile banking

• 60–65 percent of Arab Bank customers are now completing the onboarding process using its mobile app