Manama: Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB) officially unveiled its completely revamped design for the Bank’s Financial Mall located in Riffa, revealing a completely new innovative design.
The launch is in line with its simplification through digitization strategy and aptly named the Riffa Innovation Hub, the new space combines the best of both traditional and digital experiences in a single space.
With one floor dedicated to traditional customer service representatives complete with customer service agents offering their usual services, as well as a fully-fledged digital floor with self-service machines and digital services dedicated to its customers that prefer to complete their banking transactions independently, the Hub also contains the locally-owned coffee shop, Roast.
The Riffa Innovation Hub’s coffee shop was selected through a competition launched last year, where Roast emerged as the finalist in the competition. The competition came as part of the Bank’s efforts to provide ongoing support to local entrepreneurial and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector in Bahrain, by delivering innovative corporate products that facilitate their transactions. By launching the competition, which was facilitated with the Bank’s collaboration with the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCI), BisB aimed to support the SME sector in a more direct manner; by providing an opportunity of the lifetime to winner by offering a discounted rent for the entire tenure duration at the rate of 1BD alongside free utilities.
“The Riffa Innovation Hub will be a place beyond banking, not only because it combines the best of the digital and traditional worlds, offering a completely unique and seamless experience that caters to all our customers, but also because we’ll be opening up a coffee shop in the same space so you can grab a cup of coffee with a friend. It’s a complete game changer for the traditional customer experience, offering simplified service while introducing a new lifestyle-based concept to meet our valued customers’ needs,” Hassan Jarrar, the Chief Executive Officer of BisB, said.
“This will be the new way forward for all our Financial Malls, as part of our promise to simplify money matters, ultimately transforming the traditional customer experience to one that is both digital and modern- the Riffa Innovation Hub will usher in the future of Banking. This is a milestone moment for BisB, and although we look forward to receiving our customers to this brand-new concept, we still encourage our customers to make use of our services available online considering the current situation,” Dalal Al Qais, Chief of Retail Banking at BisB, said.
“Especially considering the difficult circumstances facing starts ups and local businesses in the face of the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic, we are extremely grateful for this once in a lifetime opportunity of having access to a space with a strategic location and guaranteed footfall at such a low cost. We are also excited to be part of a new concept for the banking industry, and look forward to serving premium coffee to both the employees of BisB and customers that come to the Riffa Innovation Hub,” Sadiq Al Thahaba, the founder and CEO of Roast Coffee Shop, said.
The fully fledged digital floor allows customers to perform a multitude of transactions without the need for human intervention, such as card-less cash withdrawals or deposits, printing account statements, checkbook printing, as well instant card issuance through the use of a dedicated self-service kiosk. Customers can also open accounts, apply for financing, maintain or update their records and even speak to a bank representative through a video screen as an added option.
