Al Hilal Bank, the progressive Islamic Bank headquartered in Abu Dhabi, has announced the completion of its Data Transformation Programme, as part of the Bank’s strategy to enable digital evolution throughout its entire chain of operations.

The Data Transformation Programme was implemented in record time by a specialised team from the Bank using SAS technology, innovative intelligent software for data analytics.

The Data Transformation Programme is a progressive undertaking for the Bank, enabling it to address all challenges related to data and able to use trusted information for decision making, utilising advanced analytics to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace by establishing a Data Warehouse for the Bank.

Speaking at the programme’s ‘go live’ announcement, Alex Coelho, Al Hilal Bank CEO, said, “Al Hilal Bank is leading the way in digital transformation in the UAE’s financial sector. With this latest innovative addition to banking efficiency and the setting up of our Data Warehouse in such a short period of time, this is a perfect example of how projects can and should be delivered. It proves that our IT department is more than capable of delivering transformational programmes that are of benefit to the Bank, its customers and our stakeholders.”

The Go-Live Ceremony was also attended by Francesco Sarti, COO and Aymen Al Saadi, IT Leader, along with key stakeholders of the programme.

Francesco Sarti remarked “It was a very complex undertaking given the nature of the systems involved, involvement of several departments and aggressive deadlines. The team worked in collaboration to make it happen, steering the project to a smooth delivery and coordinating with multiple stakeholders.”

Aymen Al Saadi, commented that “Setting up the Data Warehouse is fundamental to all necessary reporting activities for the Bank. It was a very smooth implementation and was concluded well ahead of time, setting up an example of teamwork, collaboration and execution for other transformative initiatives.”

Alex Coelho went on to say that previously, manual data processing had occasionally included errors. “Before Data Warehouse was inaugurated, transactional data quality used to be affected as the inputs were sometimes inaccurate and the manual data preparation processes used to take a lot of time. Now, the data analysis and outputs are automated, which not only makes the data available much faster, it also reduces chances of error. Complete historical data is now available, structured in a consistent format for advanced analytics such as trend analysis and statistical decision models to improve business outcomes, giving Al Hilal Bank another layer of excellence to add to our portfolio of enhanced products and services.”

With the launch of the Data Transformation Project, Al Hilal Bank has become the first data warehouse in the UAE to utilise the integrated banking data model. Setting up the programme and delivering it took just ten months of extensive effort of eight dedicated resources, compared to the industry average of up to 24 months to build a comprehensive data warehouse of this type.

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