Broadening Product and Market Portfolio
SAIB listens to customers' feedback to understand their needs and preferences to make its banking products and services simple and accessible. The Bank is focused on digitalization and automation to provide customers with the innovation that they expect from SAIB.
As per SAMA, the MSME sector includes customers that have up to SAR 200 million in annual sales turnover. The MSME sector is categorized in the following illustration.
The Bank is growing its Corporate and MSME customer base by increasing MSME lending through Government-backed MSME-focused programmes such as Kafalah, the Saudi SMEs loan guarantee programme launched by the Saudi Industrial Development Fund (SIDF) and Saudi banks, and the Agricultural Development Fund programme. SAIB secured a financing programme with the latter to finance companies in the agricultural sector, which is currently not being financed by other banks due to the unfavourable risk factor associated with it.
The Bank has placed a heavy focus on IT innovations to automate various processes to increase customer convenience, thus minimizing the need to visit branches to conduct most tasks. An integrated banking system is in place that covers the entire business process from front-end to the back-office processes, including automation of exceptions approvals and document archiving. The 24X7 digital services at SAIB branches have extended services to the customer in a seamless manner, continuing to enrich customer experience.
SAIB customers today are using internet/mobile banking to perform more than 85% of their transactions, which have been improved tangibly during 2019 to cover more services. The Bank has enabled product acquisition via online services such as account opening, personal finance, customer letters, which have proven to be useful for all customers, especially those customers that have limited or no access to a SAIB branch nearby. Such automation of processes has helped lower the workload on branches, leaving them free to handle more value added tasks.
Through the SAIB WhatsApp Chatbot, the Bank established itself as a pioneer in customer service. The WhatsApp Chatbot greets users with a personalised welcome message and predefined selection menu and provides automated responses to frequently asked questions. This has resulted in the reduction of customer call centre agent responses to customer queries by over 40%.
SAIB’s WooW loyalty customers can also avail themselves of shopping card wallet funding with points from the WooW loyalty programme. Additionally, they can convert their WooW points into Flynas Smile points, use their WooW points as balance in the Noon online store and Mallers app, and pay their SADAD bills.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been used to replace manual processes and boost speed and efficiency in routine processes. This has enabled improved functionalities in online payments, mobile payments, and e-Wallets. In terms of regulatory processes, RPA has also allowed for automated reporting to SAMA.
SAIB continues to explore possibilities of using technology to provide innovative services to customers, thereby tackling challenges that arise from increased demand. ‘Open banking’ is one of the focus areas of the Bank, enabling touch points between the Bank, potential partners, customers and Fintech companies, that will improve customer experience. Enhancing customer experience is an area that is getting continual focus from the Bank’s digital function, where customers benefit from quicker resolutions and increased convenience from not having to visit branches.