Explore open banking opportunities: Ithmaar

Ithmaar Bank, a Bahrain-based Islamic retail bank announced yesterday that it is fully compliant to meet the Kingdom’s open banking standards. The announcement follows the 30 June deadline set by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), the Kingdom’s banking and financial services regulator, requiring all banks to comply with the CBB’s Open Banking regulatory framework.

To achieve participation of all stakeholders in this path breaking initiative, Ithmaar Bank said it is inviting qualified FinTech companies, local start-ups and other interested parties to participate. “Open banking is, ultimately, about collaboration and, with the nation-wide initiative now rolled out on 30 June, we will all be able to work together in ways we might have never thought of before,” said Ithmaar Bank Chief Executive Officer, Ahmed Abdul Rahim.

“To best realise the tremendous potential that lies ahead, we have started reaching out to various FinTech and other CBB-licensed companies to see how we can best serve our customers and Bahraini’s banking population at large,” he said. Open banking allows customers to securely share their financial data with various institutions and aggregators. This, in turn, opens up the banking and financial services industry to new growth opportunities and, potentially, creates exciting new banking products and services for customers.

“We are equally committed to helping reinforce Bahrain’s already prominent position as a key banking and financial services hub in the region,” said Abdul Rahim. Earlier this year, Ithmaar Bank announced that it has successfully launched the region’s first biometric-enabled Automated Teller Machine (ATM) network. The announcement was made after Ithmaar Bank retrofitted all its 43 ATMs with sophisticated fingerprint readers after extensive testing of the new, first of its kind security feature.