Client Situation

Our client is an Islamic Bank headquartered in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Established in 2004, it has assets of ~$2.5 billion and branches across Bahrain. The bank offers a wide range of services catering to both, individual and corporate clients. Besides this, the bank provides investment services to its corporation level clients offering a diversified portfolio with a focus on real estate and technology. Cedar worked with the bank to provide a breakthrough growth strategy with the objective of firmly positioning the bank as a leading Bahraini Islamic Bank.

Cedar’s Approach

In this program, Cedar was mandated to provide a detailed growth and transformation strategy, along with the deployment of budgets to elevate the bank into one of the foremost Bahraini Islamic Banks.

  • Cedar reviewed vital internal data relating to financials, customer and product, credit, process, channels and organisation, IT.
  • Conducted 30+ interviews with key bank stakeholders and with individuals across different banks.
  • Conducted thorough market assessment and competitive analysis to assess market conditions.
  • Market interviews conducted with key competitors and select SME’s.
  • SWOT analysis enabled Cedar to understand potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
  • Formulated a report through inputs from the assessment process and developed 3-year financials.

Outcome

This program resulted in Cedar identifying 8 pillars key to achieving strategic growth within three years and doubling the asset book in 3 years.

  • Recommended focus on the mid-corporate, SME and retail portfolio and identified the potential of the client to expand asset book to become the fifth largest bank in the region.
  • Suggested innovation for product by segment through product bundling, instant credit cards and differentiate products offerings.
  • Recommended improving the customer experience through offering different channels like branch, mobile banking, call centre.
  • Identified organisation realignment and the use of technology as an enabler as key steps towards strategic growth using CRM, workflow, and smart-branch devices.
  • Identified key activities needing implementation for the bank’s transformation.

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