We are today witnessing a monumental evolution in the MENA Financial Services ecosystem. Both traditional Banks and Fintechs are striving to better serve their customers with differentiated products such as spending analytics, personalized offers and a truly evolved customer experience. While these features can bring considerable benefits to both institutions and their customers, developing them don't come without their technical challenges. They require an underlying foundation of clean and clear financial transaction data.
We can relate to this problem by simply looking at our Bank Statement or Mobile Banking App. Trying to decipher the abbreviated descriptions shown in most credit card statements can take a considerable amount of time and effort, a familiar example could be “HMMOE DXB AE DEBIT-POS,” which corresponds to H&M in Mall of the Emirates. Hence, institutions that want to offer budgeting, saving, and investing services struggle to do this effectively given the raw, unstructured format of current transaction data.
Although enriching and categorizing MENA transactions is a complex process, major strides have been achieved in the journey to solve this problem and bridge this capability gap. Through the use of machine learning algorithms, new scalable experiences are enabling banks and Fintechs to empower their customers' financial future and ultimately solve the difficulties around transaction data. The advantages of this new world of finance include both quantifiable revenue sources across aspects such as increased customer loyalty and personalized experiences as well as reduced cost through automated fraud screening and reduction of chargebacks.
Given the continual fusion of both financial services and technology, the future of finance is highly dependent on institutions that must adapt to the new normal, where financial services are highly-personalized and internal systems leverage data to cut cost and remain competitive. The need exists, and urgent action is required. Lune was built with this future in mind and with a goal of empowering financial institutions and Fintechs across MENA to better serve their customers.
In the next post, we will explore how Lune's transaction enrichment APIs are designed to tackle this issue and empower MENA Banks, Fintechs and businesses.
