Ismail Ali, Director of Marketing and Product Strategies for International Turnkey Systems (ITS), spoke to Islamic Business & Finance about completing the product offerings to Islamic banks.

1. IT
Filling in
the gaps

I
nternational Turnkey Systems
- ITS, a leading integrated
information
technology
solutions and software services
provider, offers world class quality
IT solutions and services that enable
large, as well as small to medium
organisations to keep up to date with
the fast evolving competitive business
environment. As technology pioneers
with 34 years of experience in the
Middle East, ITS has a long, proven
and successful track record.
Ismail Ali, Director of
Marketing and Product
Strategies for International
Turnkey Systems (ITS),
spoke to Islamic Business &
Finance about completing
the product offerings to
Islamic banks
ITS has developed a mix of products
and solutions that meet Islamic banking
needs, and are in full compliance with
Shari’ah requirements. Ismail Ali
told us about cornering new markets
and picking up where other solution
providers leave off.
How has ITS progressed its Islamic
offerings over the last 12 months?
Over the last one and a half years we
have been changing our strategy. We
realised that some of the solution
In the coming two quarters we will launch
a new product completely based on
mobility"
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Islamic Business & Finance | ISSUE 80
providers do not provide full coverage
for Islamic banks. Most of the banks
have a technology solution but a big
amount of their work still needs to
be done manually, or it consumes
a lot of resources. Effective and
efficient operations are crucial for
banks, banks are looking at reducing
operational risk, new positioning
and better operating margins. ITS
adopted a strategy that meets banks,
demands, We offer a modular-based
solution that solves operational
pains, provides accurate results
while maintaining low TCO. ETHIX
financial solutions capitalise on
the current banks’ IT investment
and infrastructure.
www.cpifinancial.net

2. IT
For them, we reduce the cost of
ownership by offering a full solution
for a specific area of Islamic banking.
For example, Al Hilal Bank, which
wasn’t one of our clients at the
time but now works with us, used
to have a big issue related to profit
calculation and distribution, which is
a main function of Islamic banking,
so we made a deal with them and
implemented our components for
profit distribution and allocation,
which has reduced operational time
and increased accuracy.
We have been repeating the same
model with many other banks. We have
the same deal with Ajman Bank. We are
mainly focussing on helping Islamic
banks increase efficiency by offering
them real technology that helps them
to enhance their operations.
How do an Islamic bank’s IT needs
differ from a conventional bank’s?
There are large areas they have in
common when it comes to the
technology side, as well as reporting
to the Central Bank in some areas. The
main issue the Islamic banks are facing
from a technology point of view is the
complication of providing finance in a
completely automated fashion.
Many solution providers offer
Islamic banking, but deal with specific
client requirements. They are offering
Islamic banking solutions to Bank
A, and they amend the solution to
accommodate banking requirements,
operational mandates and Shari’ah
board requirements. They offer an
amended solution for Bank B – or
they convince Bank B to make some
of the work manual.
What we do in ITS, because we
are focussing on the Islamic banking
side, is provide the bank with a range
of tools which helps a bank refine
its own solution, so the bank doesn’t
need to go back to ITS to define new
products or services. That is the main
difference that enables us to get our
additional Islamic components to run
www.cpifinancial.net
alongside any other solution provider,
which helps the bank take control of
its own technology.
What are your initiatives for the
next 12 months?
When we look at our roadmap which
is derived from the challenges that
are faced by the financial industry,
there are two main elements: one is
purely Islamic business functionality,
and the other is related to technology
trends and how this will help the
banks. So when we look at the
banks, we are mainly looking for the
strategies they acquire to increase
profitability or productivity. From a
technology point of view, we realise
that all the Islamic banks are going
into mobility, cloud and CRM.
The mobility landscape is like
the internet landscape decades ago,
Which geographies are experiencing
the highest demand?
When we look at Islamic banking,
of course the GCC area still has a
lot of requirements. Not in terms of
new banks, but in terms of maturing
the industry; they are looking to
enhance their operations in areas
such as mobility. When it comes to
the other areas we consider North
Africa, where the Arab Spring has
been, a high demand area mainly
related to converting banks from
conventional to Islamic. This is one of
the advantages of ITS – I can claim it
is the only vendor that has been into
this cycle. We have converted banks
from conventional to Islamic in Egypt
and Kuwait, amongst other places.
This is another segment of Islamic
banking, and this has started to
boom in countries such as Libya.
We realised that some of the solution
providers do not provide full coverage for
Islamic banks"
however in the coming period mobility
will change business conduct. In the
coming two quarters we will launch
a new product completely based on
mobility . This would help the banks
to offer Islamic banking products
and services on the run. Customers’
behaviour would change; banking
will be something to do, anywhere,
anytime using mobile phone or tablet.
In operational efficiency, CRM
plays a significant role. To be utilised
efficiently, CRM has to be incorporated
into the existing solutions, not just
an additional single technology
component to be added. ETHIX is
introducing incorporated CRM
business functionalities that would
help financial institutions enhance
their operation, increase revenue by
up-selling additional products and
services to their clients.
It was booming in Egypt until the
current turmoil. Other regions which
are experiencing high demand are
African regions; some of the central
banks in Africa have already changed
regulations to accommodate Islamic
banks. It varies from some countries
such as Serbia where they have
windows to countries which have fullfledged Islamic banks. It is opening a
new market for us.
Asia Pacific, specifically Malaysia
and Indonesia are well-developed
markets. Islamic banking has been
up and running for many years
there. Their demand is not just to
accommodate basic Islamic functions
as in Africa – they are looking how to
better services and retain customers.
There, it is much more about how to
engineer and launch new products in
a timely manner.
ISSUE 80 | Islamic Business & Finance
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