The Board of Directors of UAE Banks Federation (UBF), a professional representative body comprising 48 member banks operating in the UAE, has recently held its meeting to review the progress of the initiatives the Federation launched in 2017, and adopted the priorities and action plan for 2018.

“Rising customer expectations, increasing cyber threats and a number of significant developments shaping the banking regulatory environment have generated a greater need for more collective efforts to enable banks to stay relevant while enhancing their business strategies. Our second meeting this year was to assess various initiatives launched earlier this year, aiming to bring state of the art innovative changes to the country’s financial sector and to mull over the best strategies for the year ahead,” said H.E AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, Chairman of UBF.

The board has reviewed the progress of the key initiatives of 2017 like the Cyber threat intelligence sharing platform launched in September with the aim of safeguarding the banking sector from cyber threats. BoDs also deliberated on the implementation of the frameworks developed by the Federation, in line with global best practices, on ethical selling practices in the retail banking and wealth management sectors, as well as handling customers complaints framework.

The board also addressed progress on banks implementation of the Nationalization strategy as well as SMEs finance confirming banks commitment and support to enhance Emiratization and increase banks finance to SMEs.

Moreover, the board also discussed the new brand identity of UBF, which was launched recently, as part of its efforts to reinforce its pivotal role in driving the continuous growth and development of the country’s banking sector.

Finally, the board discussed latest developments in the banking sector and trends like Artificial Intelligence, big data, and fintech.