IBS Journal January 2016


Digital banking start-up Koho teams with Visa


Koho, a new digital bank in Canada, has teamed up with Visa to offer prepaid cards. The bank will offer branded Visa prepaid


cards issued by Peoples Trust, a Canadian financial institution, with US-based Galileo providing transaction processing services. Daniel Eberhard, CEO of Koho, praised


this ‘world class team’ and says Koho’s plan is to offer ‘mobile banking with no monthly fee’. Koho says it makes money from an ‘inter- change’. Every time a merchant processes a payment, they pay a service fee (inter- change), and Koho gets a portion of that. In a blog post, Koho says it now has ‘all


the pieces required to get Koho live’ and adds that it’s ‘about two months out from launch’. Koho says its services can only be used in Canada.


Banking in Canada The traditional banking space in Canada is dominated by five big banks – Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), Scotiabank, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). Koho’s ambitions are to take some of their business away, but it does have a similar rival in Canada in the form of


digital-only Tangerine Bank. Tangerine was founded in 2013 by ING but nowadays is a subsidiary of Scotiabank. Recently, CIBC announced it was turn-


ing to digital solutions in a bid to cut more than $600 million in costs over the next three years. CIBC is investing in an online platform


based around customer self-service. The bank will be pumping around $70 million a year into a project that will see it create ‘digital zones’ in its 1100-strong branch network.


Antony Peyton


Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank partners with IBM to launch new digital studio


Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) has teamed up with IBM to build a new digital studio. ADIB says the studio will be the first of


its kind in the region, and it will be used to work on various digital innovation projects across the bank, including mobile banking iOS apps built on IBM’s Bluemix cloud plat- form and IBM Mobilefirst. Sagheer Mufti, chief operating officer,


ADIB, says the digital studio means it now has access to a team of ‘dedicated IBM digital experts’ – such as people from IBM


Design and IBM Interactive Experience, the industry’s ‘largest hybrid digital agency and consultancy’. The bank says it is looking to increase


its activities in the fintech space, and will be using Bluemix to work on next-generation apps for cognitive computing and analytics. ADIB will also deploy the IBM Mobile-


First for iOS trusted advisor app, allowing their financial advisors to access and man- age client portfolios from their iPads. Antony Peyton


Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank branch © alleninternational.com


Bank Muscat launches new mobile banking app


Oman-based Bank Muscat has launched a new mobile banking app to enable fast payments both domestically and internationally. The new app, named mBanking, will


utilise Muscat’s Swift-powered payments network to allow fund transfers across the world. The app also includes a zakat calcu- lator and a system for the making of charity payments.


Each of the features has a funds limita- tion set upon it, with the maximum inter-


national transfer per day capped at $6,500. Bank Muscat customers are allowed to make five transactions a day from the app for each service. mBanking also offers loan statements,


bill payments, statement requests and account preference changes. Replacing an older mobile applica-


tion, existing Bank Muscat account holders’ usernames and passwords will migrate to the new app along with existing data and account history.


© IBS Intelligence 2016 According to Tariq Atiq, assistant gen-


eral manager of cards and ebanking at Bank Muscat, the new app aligns with the Omani government’s plans to create a ‘dig- itised society’. The mBanking app, he adds, will ful-


fil the banking requirements of ‘a young, tech-savvy generation’ in the country. Available in both English and Arabic, the new app has been optimised for use on iPhone, Android and Blackberry phones. Alex Hamilton


www.ibsintelligence.com 21


digital round-up


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