Yousuf Al-Duwailah, the head of the company Business Sector, declared the strategic relations that bind ITS with its renowned peers in the field of software and infrastructure wordwide. He indicated that ITS is a pioneer in providing services to Islamic banks and to financial and banking sectors through developing the technical side in the provided services aiming to widen the product base and innovate other products so that these banking and financial institutions can cope with their peers. Mr. Yousuf also pointed out the importance of electronic communication in cost reduction and in limiting subsequent burdens for various entities and financial institutions, naming some markets where ITS has an active presence, and presenting some new products and solutions which he expects to be easily marketed and to be the focus of customer interest, denoting that information technology is no more just a sector but a lifestyle for all communities. Production sectors in all fields face a lot of challenges, what characterizes ITS compared to its peers?
– ITS is characterized by acknowledging the concept of partnership with its customers. ITS has been present in the market for 35 years and its customers’ commitmnet reaches to 99 %; it established a strong relationship with many of its customers that extends over 30 years, this is why our long term relation with customers is of great importance to us. What characerizes ITS most is the R&D scientific and software center which it established more than 25 years ago for financial sector; this is what made ITS more advanced than its peers in the region as regards electronic applications and distinguished relationships with its customers based on good communiction with the customers and awareness of their future expectaions.Our integrated solutions of infastructure, software applications and services target the financial sector.
Throughout the past years of achievement you provided various solutions and services addressed specially to the financial sector, what are the most important solutions you provided and what are their characterisitcs? 
– ITS provides integrated solutions for the banking and financial sector including various applications, infrastructure software and support services for that sector which makes ITS the only company in the region that provides different solutions to meet all the financial requirements regarding technical demands; this deminished the subsequent burden related to the way of connecting intra banking systems. In addition, ITS has strategic relations with the most renowned IT and infrastructure companies worldwide which gives the customer the ability to select the best solutions and systems that serve the financial solutions. Moreover, ITS has always had a leading role in dealing with the financial sector being the pioneer company that provided services to Islamic banks in the region. Being always prominent in the IT field is due to ITS acknowledged strategy of being up to date with the latest technologies and continuously being keen to listen to its customers’ requirements and to communicate with them to provide solutions that satisfy their changing demands and finally to gain customer satisfacion which is evidenced by customers’ loyalty and commitment to partnership with ITS for long terms. Burdens and Cost Reduction
In respect of the increasing electronic hacking on the banking and financial institutions systems, whithin the region or worldwide, the demand increased on affording security systems, how can your company face this kind of challenge?
– In fact, this is a positive challenge as the banking and financial sectors began to exert more efforts to enhance the services provided to their customers through its institutional competition to develop the technical aspect of its services aiming to widen its product base and innovate other products. This depends mainly on the technical aspect which gave ITS the motivation to invest in this field and work on developing electronic services that are more suitable to its customers, in addition to studying customer requirements through the type of their business and their data analysis (BIG DATA) which finally helps the financial sector provide better services to its customers.What is more important is that providing electronic services by banks helps to a great extent in reducing costs and subsequent burdens on different entities and financial instituions with respect to the high costs of managing branches and human resources in banking sector. In addition, the cost of obtaining new software and electronic services remains lower than opening a new bank branch. Moreover, many countries in our region find difficulty in communicating with remote branches; hence the importance of electronic banking services which depend now on smart phones especially in the developing markets such as Africa and Central Asia.Broadening towards new markets
What are the markets that you are present at now?
– ITS provides various solutions and services in Asia, Middle East and Africa, in addition to South America where the company has customers to whom it provides solutions and systems that meet their requirements, taking into consideration the laws and legislations of these countries’ central banks. Moreover, we seek broadening to European and Central Asia markets within the coming years through presenting our services to Islamic banks and financial institutions as there are many promising opportunities at these countries. Technology is a lifestyle
Are you going to launch new services and solutions?
– Every year we seek to launch new products and solutions, we launched lately what is called VIRTUAL BRANCH; it is a device that provides bank branch 24/7 services without the need to employees serving the customers. I think this type of solution will substitute branches within the coming five years. In addition, the mobile applications and solutions will be the focus of attention and widely spread, especially that 95% of the services within the coming years will be performed through smart phones. Thus, banks will achieve a big margin in cost reduction and profit increase, especially that the cost of managing branches and employees who provide services consumes a high percentage of profits that reaches 70%, whereas smart branches will consume only 10% of profits. Hence, we work on developing the ETHIX product which is to be named ETHIXNG (New Generation), it will be available to customers within the coming three years, it provides solutions for all challenges the customers face above of which is the administration cost, this product will be based on cloud computing and electronic services. Information technology is no more just a sector, but a lifestyle for all communities, therefore we hope that all of us become aware of this change and seek to enhance provided services, especially that information technology will be the base in any service sector thanks to its facilitating the performance of all actions.
Al Bayan economics-Release 542-January 2017.