NBP: Leading Digital Transformation for Pakistani Banking
As Head of IT and CTO at the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), Amin Manji has a host of responsibilities channelled into the bank’s core, overarching objective – to ensure its technology strategy, vision and roadmap actively propel business objectives with speed and agility.
“I am an executive first and a technologist second,” says Amin, who juggles Team Leadership & Growth, IT Strategy & Strategic Oversight, Cybersecurity & Governance, Transformation & Innovation, and Operational Management on his mission to enable the success of his fellow team members.
“I believe that technology is primarily about people,” he continues, “followed by planning and process at a close second.
“In my role as Head of Technology, I spend a significant portion of my day interacting and engaging with team members across the group to better understand what drives them, to hear issues they may be facing, where their interests lie and how they seek to grow so we are better able to offer them roles more suited to their individual interests.”
It’s clear that people come first for Amin – but he is also devoted to his responsibilities for planning and processing, a core aspect of IT governance given the complex nature of emerging technologies and the need to stay compliant with the latest regulations.
This can be particularly challenging, given the speed at which regulations evolve and change. Add to this the need to ensure cybersecurity, data privacy, cross-border payments and transactions adhere to global standards, and that all new technologies employed are scalable, robust, resilient, fault-tolerant, open, extendible and designed with futureproofing in mind, and the challenge can seem daunting.
Though, thanks to his extensive experience across technology and finance, Amin has the skills to deal with these challenges.
“Delivering to the need of the moment requires presence of mind, ingenuity, rational analysis of an unfolding situation, decision making under pressure and the ability to take decisions and own them,” he says.
“More often than not, there are no right answers; just courses of action based on the information at hand, a rational analysis of what the information is possibly telling us and the ability to critically evaluate what the analysis reveals.”
Successfully navigating these challenges allows Amin to take great joy in his role, particularly when it comes to developing and leveraging the latest innovative projects.
Using leading edge and diverse technology, real-time 24x7x365, always-on multi-channel services and the opportunity to develop products and solutions for stringent and complex requirements in short turnaround times represents an exciting proposition for Amin.
“A sophisticated tech ecosystem, training, development and growth opportunities, and an incredibly smart cohort of team members to boot, make this industry an enjoyable place for me and I have been fortunate to have discovered it early in my career,” he continues.
“I also enjoy engaging frequently and regularly with business group heads to understand their challenges, competitive imperatives, product roadmaps and evolving strategies to propose and shape solutions through a technology lens.”
Evolving as CTO alongside NBP
NBP has evolved significantly since Amin first joined the organisation. Founded in 1949 under the National Bank of Pakistan Ordinance, NBP has since established itself as ‘The Nation’s Bank’.
Today, NBP functions as a conduit for treasury transactions on behalf of the Government of Pakistan, and – as an agent of the State Bank of Pakistan – NBP has a significant in-person presence, with 1,500 domestic branches, 18 branches overseas and over 1,400 ATMs across the country.
Its segment presence runs across corporate, investment, commercial, retail, treasury, capital markets, agri, inclusive development and retail and digital banking in conventional and Islamic Banking.
Now a technology-first institution, NBP has evolved significantly in the time Amin has been there and he has grown along with it.
“Since I joined the bank, the IT team has restructured and reorganised to align with our mission and to reflect the complexity and specialisation of our activities,” Amin says.
“Training and development, at all levels including myself, has been made mandatory to ensure team members are guaranteed access to learning and growth opportunities and have an opportunity to maintain and enhance their expertise.
“The bank’s tech stack has been entirely revamped and standardised across hardware, software, OS, networking, tools, 24x7 monitoring systems, databases, incident management, reporting, logging, archiving, security tools – just about every facet that comprises ‘technology’.
“Frameworks, SOPs and processes covering almost every aspect of our work have been formulated and implemented, providing a level of consistency, sustainability and transparency in our work product and enabling continuous improvement.”
However, for Amin, there is still much more that is to be achieved, personally and across the organisation, as part of the bank’s transformation journey. And, while implementing new technologies is exciting and leads to new efficiencies, Amin reinforces that IT is “about people first – everything else is a distant second”.
He continues: “While tools and technologies in IT are fundamental, the real power lies in the people who design, implement, manage and innovate. Investing in people through training, supportive leadership and a positive work environment is far more important than investing in technology itself. This is a foundational tenet that has and continues to guide me.”
Indeed, digital transformation is the new norm for NBP, much like it is for other leading institutions. This includes cybersecurity efforts, which are a non-negotiable today for protecting consumer data, securing financial transactions and the continuity of products and services.
“Sustainability is becoming an increasing concern for us too,” adds Amin, “and we continue to progress on this front with green data centres, elimination of paper, hardware recycling and preferred procurement of higher recycled content products.”
NBP and inclusive development: Supporting the underserved
While leading the charge to digital transformation with a focus on people is the key focus for Amin, he is acutely aware of NBP’s responsibility to foster financial inclusion, with an estimated 100 million (out of 250 million) Pakistani adults unbanked, a low literacy rate of 58% and a high poverty level now sitting at 40%.
“These issues, against a backdrop of economic considerations, are throttling progress on financial inclusion and hence on inclusive growth,” says Amin.
Despite the headwinds to financial inclusion, NBP remains committed to reaching its goals of supporting the underbanked as one of Pakistan’s ‘Big Five’ banks.
Indeed, the bank is already seeing substantial growth in online payments and digital financial transactions as it bids to meet its inclusivity goals.
This has been helped by Pakistan’s 2008 Branchless Banking regulation, representing an entry point to banking for millions through mobile – reaching underserved populations in rural areas. Today, Pakistan has a high mobile penetration rate of 82%.
“More recently, we saw the launch of Raast,” says Amin, “Pakistan’s first instant payment system for end-to-end instantaneous digital payments.”
Raast enables individuals, businesses and government entities to settle small-value retail payments in real-time, while at the same time offering low-cost universal access to financial industry participants including commercial banks, microfinance banks, government entities and fintechs (EMIs & PSPs).
Leveraging these technological and regulatory advancements, NBP has effectively scaled its digital services alongside its existing network of in-person branches across Pakistan.
“We’re proud to offer the most extensive branch network to rural Pakistan and offer digital onboarding for prospective customers to avail an entirely digital experience without the need for branch visits,” notes Amin. “Customers may transact on Raast too, through the Bank’s digital channels that offer full integration with the network.”
Its full scale of services means NBP is primed to meet its customers where they are and serve their banking needs. With credit and non-credit services spanning various products, from savings accounts to government financing options and mortgage financing, NBP can meet the needs of all individuals and businesses.
NBP: Compliance front of mind
With all these offerings on the table, ensuring compliance remains robust – one of the challenges Amin faces as CTO – is of critical importance.
With new technologies comes a demand for more stringent risk management, as Amin expands: “Risk management is not saying that we don’t take risks; it is that we are aware of the risks we take and take them on a conscious, measured and informed basis.
“While we can’t predict which risk will come to transpire, aspects such as climate change, technological disruption, geopolitical risk, threats to the global supply chain and issues related to cyber-crime, data protection and privacy behoves one to be prepared for an uncertain and volatile future and for any or more than one of these to occur simultaneously at any instant.”
While this may seem hyperbolic to some, Amin “has been around long enough to see each of these factors impact enterprise IT in respective organisations”.
“Within our technology function, we have formalised the practice of ‘what-if?’ disaster scenario analysis,” he continues, “pushing the envelope to extremes that have resulted in increased awareness, consideration, preparedness and maturity for such eventualities.
“When you hear someone say “that’ll never happen”, it’s time to start worrying; really worrying. Rest assured, if it can happen, it will happen, and it will happen at the worst possible time. And when it does happen you can only take one of two courses of action – either own it or run from it. For myself, running is not an option; prepare and be prepared.”
Close relationships with fintech partners
When meeting compliance amid implementing new technologies, particularly those sourced from third parties, it is important to have the right fintech partner onboard.
By leveraging digital ecosystems and fintech partners, NBP is able to offer a range of digital services and implement new products and services at pace.
“Fintech partnerships play a pivotal role in NBP’s digital transformation and our relationship with them is a symbiotic one; we get to fast-track innovation, realise operational efficiencies and enhance customer experience while participants gain regulatory experience, get access to a large and broad customer base and gain credibility in the market,” notes Amin.
“No organisation is able to or even should endeavour to do it all. We support fintechs and startups to mature or tune their products and services through POCs and skunkworks activities or, for the ones that have a more market-ready offering, by engaging them through customised models.
“Having said this, engagement with third parties is always conducted in a manner that ensures we remain compliant with the regulatory regime and there is no compromise on data protection, information privacy and cyber security. While this poses hurdles, instances of where these have been unsurmountable are few.”
NBP on track for a digital future
Over the next few years, NBP is looking forward to wrapping up its current transformation plans as it bids to solidify its standing as a digital-first bank.
“We are enhancing our focus on innovation as we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in the products and services we offer,” concludes Amin.
“While there are specific objectives we are targeting to achieve, general focus areas are strengthening cybersecurity, embedded finance, hyper-customisation, digital channels growth and enrichment, resiliency, (Gen) AI for NLP, simulation and prediction and reducing time-to-market.”
It’s no secret that Gen AI is here to stay and Amin looks forward to leveraging the technology which he feels will “surpass the internet in terms of what it can do for us”.
“I believe we have only seen the veneer of what it will eventually morph into given the rate at which this technology is evolving,” he continues.
“Yes, there are very real concerns about AI that need to be considered in terms of ethics, bias, privacy, cybersecurity and intellectual property, to name a few, but I believe these will be managed and surmounted.
“Gen AI will most likely result in labour market disruptions, but in the near term, these will be limited to specific limited segments of the economy like marketing and entertainment, extending to others over a longer timeframe.”
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