8


year; projects are underway in Tunisia and Morocco, with a go-live expected in the former by the end of December 2016 and the latter entering the final stages of implementation. Path’s ability to jump into North African markets and win substantial deals has been a tremendous success for the firm in particular, claims Kateeb.


Another major landmark for the year was the continued evolution of the vendor’s various technological offerings. “We have been amazed at how smooth the transition has been for our existing customers [when upgrading software]. We’re also very happy to be implementing the upgraded versions of iMAL (Path’s flagship Islamic core banking system) with new customers as well.” The implementation of risk management, data analytics and omni-channel capabilities into the existing system also stands out.


The geopolitical fluctuations in both the Middle East and the world have provided immense challenges to the sector. But Path has been able to go to new markets and expand satisfactorily despite the rollercoaster nature of Middle Eastern economics over the last year.


“The Middle East is of course the centre of Islamic finance, and has seen some bad years every now and then,” says Kateeb. “We have obviously seen issues in Iraq and Syria. With the now President-Elect Trump and the Yemen war, these problems, including the way Muslims are viewed around the world, are a challenge for Islamic finance.”


While governments might be looking at banks and vendors to help expand the reach of Islamic finance, the companies are shy of making moves and in many cases putting them on hold. “Although the industry is growing, it’s not growing as fast and aggressively as we had seen a few years back before all of the issues arose.”


A sharp drop in oil prices has hit the gulf particularly hard, admits Kateeb. The budgetary changes from the price drop have in turn created a dip in spending from all sectors, not just finance. The impact on Path Solutions, however, was limited, due to the company’s expanding presences in North Africa, and the Americas, where firms were more inclined to initiate upgrades.


www.ibsintelligence.com © IBS Intelligence 2017


“We are always trying to go after new markets, to try and balance out the risks that can appear in the Middle East.”


Standing out


Path has always maintained that among its key distinctions is iMAL’s full dedication to Islamic finance. The system was built from the ground-up as Shari’ah-compliant and was the first to obtain the Islamic compliance certification in 2008. The rate of replacement for users of the iMAL system is relatively low, though there have been a few notable examples in the past decade. “We built a system from scratch to address the needs of Islamic institutions,” says Kateeb. “We did not go and customise a conventional system to make it comply with Shari’ah.” Islamic banking is, by its nature, much more complex than traditional methods. “I guarantee that you can take any Islamic banking system and run it in a conventional bank but it’s very tough to take a conventional system and run it in an Islamic institution.”


Path has created in iMAL a system that is exceptionally flexible, adds Kateeb. Islamic finance has relatively few standards when compared to traditional banking – every bank follows its own standards and its own version of Shari’ah – It has a board and whatever it says goes. “You have to have a system that is flexible and which will allow you to operate in all these different countries with different rules,” states Kateeb. Being known as a leader in Islamic finance means that Path gets to work with so many banks, each with its own foibles and requests. This gives the vendor experience that can be used to create a system designed for the entire Islamic finance sector. Every time a new Islamic bank emerges and enters talks with Path, the vendor is gaining a little bit of extra knowledge.


At the very core of a great Islamic banking system is the technology. “You have to have a great technology solution and we believe we have a very competitive system that can compete on the technology with any other challengers and right now we’re very comfortable going to any presentation on both the business side and the technology side.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27