ALIBABA Cloud will be working with the local Islamic banking industry to deploy its data analytic services and assist financial institutions in securing marketplace and extending their service offerings to the stakeholders. Alibaba Cloud Malaysia and Thailand GM Kenny Tan said the firm is in talks with several local financial institutions to deploy its predictive analytics programme after securing a partnership with Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd. “We are definitely looking at banks in Malaysia to collaborate in deploying our data analytics services. “We are exploring and talking to other banks besides our maiden collaboration with Bank Muamalat, and hopefully it will result in other banks to follow suit,” he said at the Alibaba Cloud Summit 2019 in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. Tan acknowledged that digital transformation is a dare move for every bank to take on, but there has been a lot of success for those who embarked on the journey. Yesterday, the cloud arm of Alibaba announced its partnership with Bank Muamalat to deploy its financial techno logy (fintech) to help the bank in keeping track of its customers and offer recommendations according to the individuals’ predictive financial capability. “From the bank’s perspective, they would like to help the small and medium-sized firms to better utilise the information that they have. “These banks have a lot of insights, but they don’t really know how to communicate and make use of the data. “We work with the bank to develop the predictive analytics and see how we can churn out insightful information that the bank has and distribute them to end users,” he said. Tan said the predictive analytics service for Bank Muamalat is expected to commence at the end of this year. “It’s a work in progress as we have just signed the partnership and we are going to look at it as soon as possible. “It’s our first collaboration in the financial industry and we are planning to launch it by the end of the year,” he said. On the collaboration, Bank Muamalat CTO Abdul Razak Mohamed Ismail said that predictive analytics would help the bank provide tailor-made services and better understand the segmentation of its end users. “The collaboration presents a perfect opportunity for us to use predictive analytics that is powered by big data and artificial intelligence technologies to better understand our customers’ segmentation and preferences. “It will not only allow us to offer better products and services to our customers, but also help us to offer tailor-made financial services that suit their financial growth,” he said. Meanwhile, Alibaba Group VP Selina Yuan (picture) said the technology giant will be focusing on the human capital and training of its workforce in the country. “We have already invested in our data centre expansion in Malaysia in the beginning of the year. “We will continue to invest more in our resources here, particul arly in the training courses. “In terms of physical expansion, we have plans in the pipeline but it will have to depend on the business growth in Malaysia,” she said.—Agencies
