McKinsey Middle East’s Post

Thank you, Asharq Indicators by Asharq Business اقتصاد الشرق for hosting me and providing the opportunity to discuss key insights from our latest report, ‘The State of GCC Banking: An Exceptional Operating Environment,’ which I co-authored with my colleague Alberto Alvarez We delved into the performance of Gulf banks, highlighting the unique factors driving their higher returns vs. global piers. Here are a few key insights from the discussion: - Superior Margins: Gulf banks have outperformed global counterparts due to better funding costs and operational margins - Faster Growth: economic growth driven by many factors, namely significant transformative agendas by Gulf governments and local demographics contributing for the growth of banking revenues - “Fixing the roof while the sun is shinning”: several actions that banks should be proactively taking to navigate and capitalize on the evolving future conditions Keen to hear your thoughts (also link for the report in the post below).

🚀 Exciting Update from SAMA: Second Release of the Open Banking Framework! 🚀 The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has just announced the second release of the Open Banking Framework, with a focus on Payment Initiation Service (PIS). This is a major step forward in strengthening the Kingdom’s fintech ecosystem and enhancing the customer experience. 💳🔐 Key highlights: • Improved Transaction Efficiency: PIS will make payments faster and more secure. • New Opportunities for Fintech: This opens up space for innovative products and solutions. • Secure & Reliable Standards: The new release ensures that participants can offer services in a safe and standardized manner. This initiative is part of Saudi Arabia’s National Fintech Strategy under Vision 2030, pushing us closer to becoming a global fintech hub! 🌍💡 To learn more, visit openbanking.sa #Fintech #OpenBanking #DigitalTransformation #SaudiVision2030 #PIS #SAMA #Innovation #Finance #Tech

Significant growth in digital financial services in Egypt

As our economy continues to evolve so do we at Visa by penetrating underserved commercial segment clients. We are shifting away from traditional banking to an evolutionary model where we are in the core of day to day business payments enhancing AP/AR with a consumerization of offering and solutions for our customers. #realtimepaymenta, #digitization and simple relevant solutions are what we and Swypex aim to offer with this #partnership to serve our Egyptian companies and help support the backbone of our economy. This is the beginning of a partnership that truly reflects our core vision and mission; the best way to pay and be paid. Ahmed Atef Noreen Aly Karim Sayegh Ahmad Mokhtar

Digital transformation in action ! The ease of doing business , specialization is going away . Breaking banks “Banks is not a place you go , it something you do “ Brett King . This is feasible with everything as a service and new business models and cloud technologies .

Sharing my article in Al Joumhouria, outlining the priorities for the new cabinet: rebuilding the state and its institutions, restructuring the banking sector, re-establishing talks with Arab countries, reforming the judicial system, and most importantly, rebuilding trust. https://lnkd.in/danKE7wZ

Record highs for #Gold, in USD terms, as predicted by RW Advisory This is a timely follow-up to my recent in-person interview with Asharq Business اقتصاد الشرق re-highlighting our theme of "Gold verging into a “transformation period” in behavioural terms, primarily fuelled by FX debasement, safe-haven flows and record central bank demand. However, Gold is currently overbought, due a tactical unwind and new buy on the dip opportunity ahead, before resuming higher towards our targets at $2400 and $2700. Portfolio guidance is a barbell approach; holding or trimming existing selection of risk assets, while also building up defensive positioning into this expected volatile cycle period of March-April. Many thanks to Maya Hojeij and the team at Asharq Business اقتصاد الشرق Ramadan Kareem 🌙 to all Arabic viewers celebrating this blessed season 🙏 📉 Feature Gold tactical chart to follow. 🙏Thanks for reviewing 👍 Like 💡 Share key insights 🔔 Join our community  📈 Market insights RW Advisory / 🧠Training IntensiChi 🙌 Telegram -https://t.me/MarketandMind 🏦 Institutions DM or connect via Symphony-https://lnkd.in/gzQV5frZ

Finally we hear that software engineering and brain power is on the agenda of the country to expand globally and increase exports. Music to my ears. However, after 25 years of experience in building specialized software for the banking industry, I can assure that this objective will never be achieved unless our national institutions trust and support the local product. As long as the leaders of our national institutions will always prefer the international products, which by the way are usually not fit for our environments, and continue to fight against the local products to avoid the risk of not choosing the big names, local providers will not be able to compete globally nor maintain their brain power. How can we convince the global market with our products, if our national institutions do not trust. I hope we begin to see a mind shift in the boards of the national institutions to adopt and support local software before we lose the very little that we have. God bless our country and the young talented generations. National Bank of Egypt (NBE) Banque Misr Banque du Caire CIB Egypt QNB Alahli Central Bank of Egypt Egyptian Banks Company EBANK Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Egypt Information Technology Industry Development Agency, ITIDA

In the below interview on Asharq الشرق I discuss Saudi’s pre budget 2025, global factors that may affect markets as well as what to expect in 3Q earnings . SICO Capital SICO BSC (C) #SICOResearch