Remarkable partnership between Capital Bank of Jordan, IBM and Jordan Business Systems

Capital Bank of Jordan have just worked with IBM to release a detailed case study of their successful project to modernize their data infrastructure which features technical consultancy, design and delivery, with both IBM and their key partner Jordan Business Systems.

The bank has been working hard for the last three years to develop its customer base and has been winning banking awards as well as growing the business substantially. Profits doubled and a new digital sub-brand, Blink, had been successfully launched and broadened the customer base even further.

Beyond the recent successes, however, Capital Bank managers knew that the retail customer market in Jordan could support much more growth. They saw that while many in the country have a mobile (80%) a relatively low number of women had a bank account and only half of the population as a whole had an account. So strategic digital transformation was needed to equip the bank to meet consumers’ needs, but that would mean investment in data management capabilities and a range of other digital infrastructure needs.

In the Case Study, Group Chief Operating Officer (COO) Izzidin Abusalameh is quoted talking about the need to choose the right systems and partners to meet the challenges of developing new services for the intended new customer base. “For us, execution means integrating our acquisitions rapidly and smoothly and beyond that, delivering a high-quality, personalized experience for all of our customers” he says. “We see unified data management as the foundation of those capabilities.”

Implicit in digital transformation projects such as this one is the opportunity to know much more about the customer transactions and needs, with data management being central to the mission. “At its core, our retail and corporate strategies are based on gaining a deep understanding of our customers, and using that knowledge to cultivate and strengthen our relationships with them,” he says. “In that sense, having the right data infrastructure—to collect, organize and analyze our data—is fundamental to the success of our strategy” said Izzidin Abusalameh in the Case Study.

The case study also details the key benefits of the IBM solution, with Bahaa’ Awartany, Capital Bank’s Chief Data Officer (CDO), citing the multiple built-in integrated capabilities of the IBM solution which he sees as unique. “Having a solution that can support every dimension of our vision—data, AI and machine learning—is very important,” he says in the case study. “IBM brings the advantage of a very powerful data warehouse along with a full suite of AI and machine learning tools. It’s what truly set the IBM solution apart.”

To deliver an effective solution for Capital Bank, IBM Business Partner Jordan Business Systems (JBS) was supported offsite by an IBM team in a project that has worked through two stages. The first stage, now completed, saw JBS deploy Netezza Performance Server units which enabled the Capital Bank Data Office to create a new data warehouse. With that achieved, the bank was able to capture and centralize data from all its banking operations, both core and internal, and the range of retail banking applications into one single data warehouse.

The second phase of activity involved the acquisition and data migration of two other major regional banking operations, Bank Audi (in Jordan and Iraq) and Société Générale Bank Jordan. Jordan Business Systems supported the migration of both banking operations into the Capital Bank infrastructure, from the customer-facing retail experience to all in-house payroll, HR and admin systems.

Once these complex operations had taken place, Capital Bank were able to begin a third phase of data science and analytics to underpin further growth plans for the combined banking operations and potential new business opportunities.

To find out more about this successful partnership between Capital Bank of Jordan, IBM and JBS, read the Case Study online on the IBM website.

More about Capital Bank of Jordan

Based in Amman, Jordan, Capital Bank offers commercial and investment banking services and solutions to retail and corporate customers in Jordan, Iraq, UAE and Saudi Arabia. To further expand, Capital Bank acquired Bank Audi’s operations in both Jordan and Iraq in 2021, and in 2022 acquired the branches and operations of Société Générale Bank in Jordan, strengthening its position in the Jordanian and regional banking markets.

More about JBS

Based in Amman, Jordan, JBS is an IBM Business Partner providing business-focused, integrated IT solutions for organizations of all sizes. JBS’s clients can depend on a partner with flexible scale, a broad solution portfolio, and more than 20 years of business IT insight.