Financial sector revolution to boost productivity: Expert

Manama : A revolution is taking place within the financial sector that will cause a huge upswing in productivity and growth in economies, according to financial expert Mohammed Kateeb. 

The financial sector is undergoing a transformation, and this will have vast implications, said Kateeb. He said that this will translate to higher productivity. 

“The economy shifting as huge amounts of investments is going into financial technologies, money is going to infrastructure technology like the blockchain. Now banks are transforming their current businesses to go digital. I believe it is a revolution, a lot of people call it the fourth industrial revolution, and I am a firm believer in that. Any revolution will have tremendous growth because the productively will increase because of the technology. When you have an increase in productively you will have tremendous growth in economies. The world in next fifty year will undergo tremendous changes,” he told DT News. 

He said consumer behaviour has also been driving changes in the industry. 

“Millennials’ adoption of mobile banking and technologies are having vast implications. It is forcing our banks to focus on the digital channels and expand the businesses that are offered through the digital channels” he said, adding, “The usage of AI will be more to understand the consumer behaviour and to customize the services to customers. The customer no longer likes to be addressed as a group they want individual personalized services after understanding their needs. So now it is no longer about the segmentation of groups, rather now it is what we call ‘segmentation of one.”

“The job sector will be the most affected by this, you will see so many jobs disappearing and so many jobs coming up. The jobs that will disappear is anything technology can replace. But there will be areas that humans will be needed such as in areas of creativity. It is important that every country looks over their citizens, make sure that they are educated and trained to understand these changes. So education and training will become critical in the next five to ten years,” he said.