Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad (Bank Muamalat) announced a multi-year collaboration with Google Cloud to accelerate its transformation into a leading digital Islamic bank.
This collaboration aims to leverage Google Cloud’s integrated capabilities in modern infrastructure, data analytics, security, and generative AI (gen AI) to “deliver personalized and inclusive digital banking services to Malaysians.”
Bank Muamalat’s holistic cloud transformation also “encompasses the adoption of solutions from Mambu, a Google Cloud industry solutions partner, and Backbase, underscoring its commitment toward delivering cutting-edge digital banking solutions aligned with Shariah principles.”
Khairul Kamarudin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad:
“It’s our mission to bring digital banking’s full range of benefits to Malaysia’s Islamic banking market. By having our digital core systems and front-end running on Google Cloud, we anticipate streamlined IT operations and enhanced responsiveness, laying the foundation for innovation with enterprise-grade gen AI and ultimately delivering superior banking experiences.”
To lay the foundation for delivering customer-centric banking products and services, Bank Muamalat is making a strategic shift “to a cloud-based operating model.”
This involves migrating Bank Muamalat’s digital applications and databases to Google Cloud, and integrating them “with Mambu’s digital core banking platform and Backbase’s engagement banking platform to power Bank Muamalat’s new range of Islamic financing and deposit offerings.”
In addition to achieving significant cost savings and enhancing operational efficiency, this transition to an open cloud foundation empowers Bank Muamalat’s developers to accelerate software development cycles.
This translates to faster rollout of enhanced banking services “to better serve customers and drive top-line growth.”
For example, Bank Muamalat is leveraging Google Cloud’s modern infrastructure and developer cloud capabilities “to improve its Muamalat Application Platform (MAP), which facilitates applications for personal financing, education financing, home financing, and more.”
The enhanced MAP’s ability to “automate document data capture frees up staff to focus on value-added decision-making while allowing customers to complete their financing applications up to six times faster. Such innovations are expected to play a significant role in increasing the 41% of bank financing that Islamic financing currently accounts for in Malaysia.”
With built-in data access controls and customer-managed encryption keys, Google Cloud and Mambu’s digital core banking platform is “designed to meet the financial services sector’s rigorous security and compliance requirements.”
To further strengthen its security posture, Bank Muamalat is planning to deploy Google Cloud’s Chronicle Security Operations and Security Command Center Premium platforms, integrated with Mandiant Threat Intelligence, “for threat detection, investigation, and response capabilities.”
It is also implementing Firestore, Google Cloud’s serverless database, to “prevent unintended data loss from potential human errors and natural disasters.”
Fernando Zandona, Chief Executive Officer, Mambu said:
“Mambu has emerged as a leader in enabling cloud-based banking, contributing to the success of established financial institutions in more than 65 countries. As one of the pioneering traditional banks in Southeast Asia to adopt Mambu’s cloud banking platform, underpinned by Google Cloud, Bank Muamalat can now speed up its time to market for new products and services, streamline IT operations, and build delightful customer experiences.”
As an extension of its secure-by-design digital core banking platform, Bank Muamalat is looking to “utilize Google Cloud BigQuery and Looker, integrated with Google Marketing Platform.”
This will allow the bank to “consolidate and analyze first-party data that is unique to its business at scale, including data that is collected with direct consent from customers through interactions on applications and websites, and in response to marketing initiatives like email and loyalty programs.”
With unified, 360-degree customer profiles and data views, Bank Muamalat’s non-technical business analysts and marketers can then “access targeted insights to design and deliver products better tailored to different lifestyles.”
This expands their reach to broader segments of the Malaysian market, “including those underserved by traditional banking services.”