BrazilEmirates NBD partners with McKinsey to drive AI and advanced analytics
A few years ago, Dubai’s government-owned bank Emirates NBD entered into a partnership with strategy consulting firm McKinsey & Company with the aim of turning the bank into a leader in artificial intelligence and advanced analytics. Fast forward to today, and that goal has come to fruition.
Well aware of the immense opportunity that AI and advanced analytics can offer to financial institutions, both in their client-facing activities as well as internal operations, Emirates NBD chose to embark on this transformation journey. To put the potential in perspective, a McKinsey & Company report estimates that AI alone could generate as much of $150 billion in value in the GCC region, with banks among the top beneficiaries.
The collaboration between the two companies began in 2021, when Emirates NBD flew in McKinsey & Company as its lead partner for the transformation. The goal was to get a head start in establishing an advanced analytics strategy that aligned with the bank’s business model. Emirates NBD was also keen to scale use cases and deliver impact as quickly as possible.
The joint Emirates NBD – McKinsey team initially put focus on high-impact use cases that could add value across different business units. They integrated analytics outcomes into existing business applications, seeking to minimize complicated change management by not creating totally new applications.
“Like all banks, we had huge volumes of uncatalogued, multi-sourced data of varying quality and unclear provenance. Data discoverability, understandability, and quality were significant challenges,” reflected Ray Richardson, Emirates NBD’s chief data and analytics officer.
Eventually, Emirates NBD was able to develop over 100 advanced analytics models and hire more than 70 analytics professionals to support the new processes and ways of working. In order to do that, the bank put a lot of focus on talent, including boosting hiring, upskilling, and hosting skills-building events.
The process of scaling analytics was supported by McKinsey’s AI-focused subsidiary QuantumBlack. This team helped with the CI/CD framework and created a feature store, which helps to solve data management issues in machine learning applications.
“A lot of banks see AI as a huge investment that delivers very little initially,” said Ashwin Naib, associate partner with McKinsey & Company. “They understand it will eventually deliver, but find it takes too long. If you choose well, especially leveraging generative AI capabilities, you can bootstrap the investment through impact accrued initially while you scale up.”
Reaping the fruits
Three years into its journey, Emirates NDB has described its strategic AI transformation as “a success”, which has benefited top-level decision making, client services and operational efficiency thanks to more informed decision-making.
For example, the bank is now using AI to create personalized customer experiences. “Advanced analytics models can help identify high-potential prospects, drive better engagement with existing clients by matching them to the right products and services, and assist frontline teams with tailored insights and talking points,” said Marwan Hadi, Emirates NBD’s group head of retail banking and wealth management.
The emerging technologies are also used to cut out repetitive tasks, trim inefficient processes, and speed up analysis for departments. In the long-term, the goal is to generate a five to seven times return on the investments made into advanced analytics and AI.
As at 30th June 2024, Emirates NBD had a total asset base of AED 956 billion. The bank serves over 20+ million customers in around 15 countries.
