He is regarded as a recognized AI expert: Saket Saith. Since October 2022, he has been shaping the digital strategy of Rakbank in the United Arab Emirates as Group Chief Technology & Data Officer. The seasoned technology executive brings more than two decades of experience in banking and IT. Before moving to Ras Al-Khaimah, he was Chief Technology Officer for the retail business at Barclays and previously held senior positions at DBS Bank in Singapore, where he was responsible for the architecture and development of digital platforms.

At the Middle East Banking and Innovation Summit (MEBIS), he spoke... 

…about developing the right digital banking solution and application: «It is an end-to-end journey. What are the possible scenarios where the customer might need support? We are a digital bank with a human touch. In retail banking it is called the O-to-O integration, the online-to-offline world. How do you exchange that? Digital banking is a mindset. We cannot sit in a traditional banking silo and expect that the customer comes to me with his wishes, but I must think ahead about what we will expect.»

 …about where he sees digital banking in five years from now: «We see ourselves as problem solvers. We cannot compromise on security, but complexity increases exponentially. We want to leverage technology, but at the same time we aim to limit the impact on customers.» 

«I have been in banking for 30 years, and this is still the hardest nut to crack.»

…about the individual retail customer growth: «This is an area where you have to constantly reimagine. Like, from the customer who is today an employee but has an online business which he or she runs as a side hustle as a freelancer. This means it goes from a private current account to a business account. Then I grow maybe by 20 per cent per year to become an organisation. Then maybe one day the customer becomes a unicorn. This is an ongoing process where we as a bank have to understand how, as the client grows, we are able to provide appropriate services at each and every stage of development. I have been in banking for 30 years, and this is still the hardest nut to crack, I must say. AI can help a lot in this process in the sense that it helps to automate and speed up data collection and evaluation.»

…about corporate banking: «We aim for a bigger market share in this field; we are not the leader in this market segment yet. We are really looking at what our corporate banking customer needs. In relation to adoption, we look at what our corporate banking clients need. This is such a broad array. We do not only talk about multibillion-dollar companies. We talk about SMEs and microbusinesses, as well as sole entrepreneurs. We must help our SME customers as they grow, and we must be able to provide virtual account services, trade finance and supply chain finance, etc. as well. A small SME may not be so relevant for the latter, but as they grow bigger, it becomes more and more relevant.»

«The pace of the change is accelerating every single day. I can’t afford to assess the change once a month.»

…about the benefits of using AI for the banks: «AI will affect every aspect of banking. If I look at AI, then I can say this is the most significant impact in my lifetime. Until now. It is not only about humans but also about humans and machines cooperating. Even for those tasks handled by humans, you can define using AI in a systematic fashion, such as researching and looking up things. It is like getting a young intern, but then GenAI gets in as a helper, and then this helper gets better and better. Then as a human you can transform more and more of the workload. I don’t see a huge loss of work. When ATMs came up, we heard tellers would vanish. Guess what? We still see tellers. Retail branches are still there. Agentic AI will drive the massive change, because agentic AI means AI has agents driving the change rather than requiring a human who triggers it. In some areas we still want humans to overlook these triggers. In other areas of decision-making we could rely on agentic AI and make it independent, but depending on certain conditions, and this is more realistic in the next 12-18 months.»

 …about the tailwinds and headwinds in the next 3-5 years:  «The pace of the change is accelerating every single day. I can’t afford to assess the change once a month. You have to be very selective, though, with what you want to experiment with. Because no organisation has unlimited resources to invest and implement a lot of experimentation. Technology is a people’s business. You must ask for the right skills and the right mindset in your organisation. You no longer try to solve day-to-day problems, but you create a framework. It is no longer a world where I can sit in my silo and develop things alone, but partnerships become very important. And enabling that ecosystem so that you can build that relationship is important. It must be a win-win-win situation. For us as a bank, for the business partner, and of course for the customer.»