Arab National Bank, ejada Systems and IBM
The rise of digital banking and e-commerce has not only led to great convenience for customers but also opened the door to new threats. Fraudsters now seek to exploit digital channels, and tracking financial fraud has become more difficult. To combat this new wave of financial crime, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA), the central bank of the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia, issued a set of guidelines called the Counter-Fraud Framework. This framework requires banks in the kingdom to adopt robust fraud detection and prevention measures for cash and cashless transactions.
To comply with the new regulations, Arab National Bank (anb) decided to improve their fraud-detection capabilities. Although the bank already had anti-fraud measures, they did not have a complete range of fraud-detection capabilities, which led to decreased productivity in their compliance team.
Khurram Inayat, Portfolio Manager at anb, says, “We had only a limited ability to perform comprehensive analyses of customer journeys across various digital channels. Whenever fraud occurred, our compliance team would have to spend many hours mining data and piecing together how and why it happened.”
anb set out to transform their approach to financial fraud prevention with a solution that would provide a unified overview of and control over all transactions.
When looking for support to meet the regulatory mandate, anb turned to their trusted partner ejada Systems (link resides outside of IBM.com).
“ejada has been an excellent technology partner to us for a long time,” says Inayat. “We can call them at any hour of the night and they will be there for us. So when it came to this time-sensitive project, we knew we could trust them to deliver.”
Backed by their extensive knowledge and understanding of the SAMA Counter-Fraud Framework as well as decades of experience helping customers achieve compliance, ejada conducted a demo of the IBM® Safer Payments solution. An AI-enriched financial fraud prevention solution, Safer Payments provides a single control panel for monitoring fraud across all payment channels, including card processing, mobile banking and alternative payment methods.
The bank was impressed with the user-friendly nature of the Safer Payments solution and how it empowers business users to build new decision models without relying on data and IT teams. Another significant factor in deciding on Safer Payments was the technologically flexible nature of the platform.
“IBM Safer Payments helps us to be forward-looking,” comments Inayat. “As we evolve and new technologies appear on the market, we expect to be able to integrate them with the solution seamlessly.”
Working with ejada and IBM, anb successfully deployed and configured Safer Payments within 90 days. Inayat says, “This has not been an easy road—every part of the business had to come together to get the solution in place. But with support from ejada and IBM, we made it happen on an unprecedented timescale.”
Drawing on their deep experience in managing complex banking architectures and integration projects, ejada rapidly delivered integration across multiple digital channels, helping anb gain a unified view of customer behavior. ejada also helped anb maximize the value of Safer Payments by configuring the platform to deliver compliant reports back to SAMA.
With IBM Safer Payments and ejada’s partnership supporting anb’s fraud detection transformation, the bank is effortlessly meeting regulatory requirements, enhancing customer journeys and preventing financial losses for millions of people.
anb’s decision models automatically pause suspicious transactions, giving the Fraud Business Unit time to connect with customers and double-check whether a transaction is legitimate. Since deploying the new solution, anb has recorded a significant decrease in fraud incidents, especially in e-commerce-related transactions.
"IBM Safer Payments offers exceptional speed, making decisions in less than 10 milliseconds,” says Inayat. “This gives us the breathing space to resolve issues effectively and provide the best support to our customers.”
At the same time, by stopping fraud before it can occur, the bank has improved operational efficiency, spending less time on analyzing cases of fraud when they happen.
“IBM Safer Payments has truly become a core application in anb,” concludes Inayat. “We look forward to introducing further enhancements to our fraud prevention process together with IBM and ejada.”
Founded in 1979, Arab National Bank (anb) is one of the largest banks in the Middle East. With headquarters in Riyadh, anb (link resides outside of IBM.com) operates 156 branches across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and an international branch in London, United Kingdom.
ejada (link resides outside of IBM.com) has been a trusted, mission-critical technology partner to government and blue-chip companies across the MENA region for close to 20 years. With a portfolio of cutting-edge solutions to aid digital transformation, ejada delivers a wide range of services across various thriving business sectors. Backed by extensive expertise built over decades, ejada is comprised of a highly experienced executive leadership group, and more than 3,500 employees.
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