Finance Monthly March 2020 Edition

THE RESTRUCTURING OF FINANCIAL SERVICES IN THE WAKE OF Finance Monthly hears from the Financial Services team of Roland Berger in the Middle East, represented by Andreas Buelow, Bhavin Shah and Feroz Sanaulla. Between them, they cover theMiddle East region across all financial services sectors – most notably banking, insurance and asset management. Their individual focus areas are based on their strong points: Andreas leverages his past experience at a global blue-chip insurer to cover our insurance clients, Bhavin focuses on banking and regulators based on his previous experience in consulting and Feroz builds the bridge between the financial services world and the tech world with his rich background as a corporate VC executive. Below, we speak with them about their passion to tackle the challenges arising from the digitalisation of financial institutions in the Middle East. What is the current state of digitalisation in the Middle East? We need to consider that digitalisation is an important driver of transformation in the financial services space globally. Additional dynamics such as low-to-zero interest rates, a challenging global economic environment (US-China trade war, coronavirus, etc.) and changing regulatory environments add to this challenge. Moreover, in the Middle East, markets are highly competitive due to the number of financial services players present. In combination, these dynamics put the traditional business models of banks and insurance companies into question. Many established financial services players have started experimenting with digitalisation, often with the aim to improve customer experience through Andreas Buelow, Bhavin Shah and Feroz Sanaulla Roland Berger FINANCIAL INNOVATION & FINTECH - DIGITALISATION 40 www.finance-monthly.com Andreas Buelow Bhavin Shah Feroz Sanaulla DIGITALISATION