Qatar-based Islamic bank Al Rayan Bank has selected financial software applications provider Finastra to implement a new and fully integrated Islamic core banking solution.
The latest move aims to enhance operational efficiency and expand the bank’s customer offerings in the UK.
Al Rayan Bank will migrate to Finastra’s next-generation platform to streamline operations, reduce total cost of ownership, and improve service functionality for its clients.
Al Rayan Bank group chief HR officer Hamad Al Kubaisi said: “We are undergoing a technology transformation journey to ensure that we continue to offer robust, digital Sharia-compliant services that meet our customers’ needs when and where required.”
“The next step in this journey is to upgrade our banking core with a solution that provides us with the necessary agility, rich functionality and advanced technology to keep pace with our customers’ needs.”
Finastra Essence, the selected core banking solution, is designed to support both conventional and Islamic financial institutions, offering Sharia-compliant products and services.
Its microservices architecture enables financial institutions to deploy market-leading products while ensuring compliance with Sharia principles.
The platform brings together deep functionality and advanced technology to improve enterprise agility, lower costs, and enhance operational efficiency.
Based in the UK, Finastra delivers financial services software across lending, payments, treasury, capital markets, and retail and digital banking.
Finastra universal banking executive vice president Siobhan Byron said: “A key part of our customer-centric offering is being agile when it comes to how we work and deliver our solutions.
“This ensures banks like Al Rayan Bank can reimagine banking by delivering financial services that align with their customers’ expectations and values.”
The collaboration with Al Rayan Bank comes shortly after Finastra introduced Assist.AI, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant for trade finance operations within its Trade Innovation platform.
Developed using Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Assist.AI aims to provide context-aware support to users, addressing knowledge gaps in trade finance.
