Bank Islam has selected Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, as its preferred cloud provider to power its Be U digital bank.
The bank is building Be U through its Centre of Digital Experience (CDX), an independent division which is developing new banking services on AWS to transform customer experiences.
According to AWS, Bank Islam will now be able to develop new digital financial services including an app, a debit card, and a financing facility that complies with Shariah financial requirements, in just a few weeks.
The cloud provider added that CDX also gains the agility to innovate rapidly to become more customer-centric at a lower cost, while complying with the bank’s stringent security and compliance control requirements.
CDX has also selected cloud-native AWS Advanced Technology Partner Mambu to help further accelerate the bank’s digital transformation journey.
Mambu provisioned its cloud-native core banking solution on AWS to power CDX’s development environment in reportedly just one day, enabling the bank to build the Be U prototype in three months.
This agility helped CDX validate its digital banking technology stack quickly, before beginning production of Be U.
On top of this platform, CDX is building new digital banking products using Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), which gives Bank Islam the flexibility to start, run, and scale Kubernetes container applications in the cloud.
With Amazon CloudFront, a content-delivery network service, CDX can deliver content, like educational videos and interactive forecasting tools, via Be U to help customers monitor their spending, control budgeting, and oversee all aspects of their banking experience, including authorizing international credit card spending.
AWS’s capabilities will allow Bank Islam’s strategic partners, including financial technology firms and digital marketplaces, to integrate and co-innovate with CDX to provide financial services like payments, financing, and financial advice via Be U, offering customers more ways to manage their finances digitally.
To prepare employees for digital transformation and equip them with the right skillsets, Bank Islam launched a broad staff upskilling initiative designed by AWS Training and Certification. As part of this initiative, all of Bank Islam’s 4,000+ employees have access to foundational cloud training.
“We selected AWS as our preferred cloud provider to benefit from the highest levels of security and compliance, without sacrificing speed of innovation.
We were able to develop a prototype for our Be U digital bank in only three months with AWS, and we can now explore advanced cloud services, like machine learning, to develop an alternative credit framework to broaden access to customers who would otherwise have difficulty obtaining a credit line.”
said Mohd Muazzam Mohamed, CEO of Bank Islam.
“In Malaysia, Bank Islam is a great example of that. Working with AWS gives Bank Islam access to an unmatched portfolio of cloud services with the highest levels of security so they can deliver intuitive customer solutions quickly, securely, and at scale.
We are proud to support Bank Islam on their journey to develop new digital business solutions to better serve Malaysians.”
said Conor McNamara, Managing Director of AWS ASEAN.
