Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad, a leading Islamic bank, has recently announced that it has teamed up with Google Cloud, aiming to provide Malaysia with more personalised and inclusive digital banking services.
In this multi-year partnership, the company will focus on utilising Google Cloud’s features in modern infrastructure, data analytics, security, and generative AI (gen AI) to advance its online banking services, including segments underserved by traditional banking.
The bank’s cloud transformation, on the other hand, paved the way for the adoption of Google Cloud’s industry solutions partner Mambu and Backbase.
This initiative encompasses migrating Bank Muamalat’s digital applications and databases to Google Cloud, then integrating them with Mambu’s digital core banking platform and Backbase’s engagement banking platform.
The said transition to open cloud also enables the bank’s developers to accelerate their software development cycles, leading to quicker deployment of improved banking services, enhancing customer satisfaction, and driving top-line growth.
Safeguarding the bank’s security stance, the company also aims to deploy Google Cloud’s chronicle security operations and security command centre premium platforms, integrated with Mandiant threat intelligence. This deployment is set to provide threat detection, investigation, and response capabilities.
Bank Muamalat is also adopting Google Cloud’s Firestore to mitigate the risk of unintended data loss due to human errors or natural disasters.
Additionally, the bank also intends to leverage Google Cloud BigQuery and Looker, integrated with the Google Marketing Platform. This integration will allow the bank to consolidate and analyse first-party data unique to its business at scale, including the data collected directly from customers through interactions on applications and websites and in response to marketing initiatives such as email and loyalty programmes.
Khairul Kamarudin, president and chief executive officer at Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad, said, “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.”
Fernando Zandona, chief executive officer at Mambu, further stated, “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. The approval from Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysia’s industry regulatory authority, to proceed with this initiative reinforces the trust and confidence placed in Mambu and Google Cloud. We look forward to supporting Bank Muamalat as it modernises its core systems,” added Fernando.
Also commenting about the initiative, Patrick Wee, country manager for Malaysia at Google Cloud, remarked, “Personal, trusted relationships reside at the heart of the Islamic banking experience. It’s therefore crucial to design digital banking services that go beyond the purely transactional to help customers achieve their financial aspirations.”
“Bank Muamalat’s decision to leverage Google Cloud’s capabilities in modern infrastructure, security, data analytics, and Gen AI as a unified whole will help the bank drive new operational efficiencies and execution velocity and expand the relevance and reach of its services. For consumers, this means a new standard of digital Islamic banking that’s faster, easier to use, and more attuned to creating mutual trust than ever before,” Patrick further explained.
As the bank transitions into digital, it also aspires to integrate gen AI capabilities like Vertex AI Search and Conversation, empowering its staff to extract insights and recommendations from its data repository using natural language, complete with footnotes and links to supporting data sources for explainability.
This transformation will streamline information retrieval tasks, enabling quick searches or conversational exploration as well as creating tailored, evidence-based content that enhances the quality of customer engagements.
