GRI 3-3

2022 proved a momentous year for Al Rajhi Bank’s digital solution journey with the Bank closing the year ranked number one in digital banking, having made significant strides in the Group’s digital transformation drive.

The ranking was based on the Bank’s overall Net Promoter Score (NPS), which stood at an impressive 78% against an average competitor score of 61%, underscoring the Bank’s resolute commitment to a superior customer experience reinforced by its expanding digital capabilities. These capabilities became deeper entrenched across all facets of the business in 2022, resulting in an unparalleled digital customer journey, earning Al Rajhi Bank wide recognition both locally and internationally as one of the region’s premier digitally-enabled banks.

The Kingdom’s Open Banking strategy transformed the Bank’s digital and tech division into a hotbed of ideation and creative thinking, with new digital initiatives rolled out during the reporting period, paving the way for Al Rajhi Bank to become a pioneering player within the highly competitive open digital ecosystem.

Retail on the fast-track

The Bank adopted an agile methodology to implement its digital solution strategy during the year, delivering value to customers much faster. Al Rajhi Bank poured considerable energy into keeping the momentum up on the continued digitalisation of its products and services during the reporting period, resulting in ground-breaking new ideas and innovative new products in 2022, enhancing customer experience and serving their every individual need.

With data and analytics being the key accelerant of digitalization and transformation efforts, Al Rajhi Bank mobile app continued to leverage the Bank’s wealth of digital intelligence to be more insight-driven, offering cutting edge financial solutions and providing data-backed consultations to its growing customer base.

The Bank witnessed a strong growth in digital onboarding YoY in Retail, and a 17% increase in active digital customers, with the Bank pushing close to 11.4 million digital customers at the end of the reporting period. Al Rajhi Bank launched over 190 new retail products and services in 2022, resulting in a 43% YoY growth in retail transactions, and a 42% YoY increase in card issuance. Marketplace transactions grew 24% year-on-year.

A digital-boost for the corporate banking business

On the Corporate Banking front, active digital customers on the Al Rajhi Bank e-Business app recorded a 71% increase from 2021, a clear indication of the 70+ new products and services launched digitally by the Bank were meeting evolving client needs, and strengthening Al Rajhi Bank’s growing repute as the Corporate Bank of choice for clients.

The Business Hub – a digital marketplace – was launched by the Bank in March 2022 as part of its e-Business roadmap, introducing customers to new services provided by third parties such as cloud-based accounting and e-commerce services, with more new services in the pipeline as at 31 December 2022.

Unlocking the full potential of digital

Under the “unbank the bank” operating model and Bank of the Future (BOTF) Strategy, Al Rajhi Bank continued to provide customers access to instant banking through a seamless customer journey. The majority of the Bank’s offerings were migrated to digital channels in 2022, empowering customers to make informed financial decisions faster than ever before.

In 2021, the Bank rolled out the “One Minute Approach” to enable end-to-end transactions and services within one minute. Balancing innovation, regulation and risk in the shift towards high-speed transactions, the Bank continued to successfully execute this strategy in 2022 and increase customer satisfaction by maximising simplicity and minimising the number of steps involved.

An increase in cross-selling opportunities in 2022 allowed customers to have multiple financing in the same request seamlessly. A number of other services were also introduced during the reporting period to further enhance customer experience.

The branchless banking initiative was a great success in 2022, with many of the projects under it already delivered and available to customers. The initiative will continue to meet the growing demand by customers to avail more branch services digitally.

The digitalization of the Bank’s contact centre made notable progress during the reporting period, with many customers switching to the function rich and easily accessible mobile banking channel to access its growing range of services.

Al Rajhi Bank’s accelerated its digital solution drive was a resounding success in 2022, as a testimony to which the Bank won a number of prestigious local and international awards during the reporting period:

Future outlook

Al Rajhi Bank will continue its digital solutions digitalisation journey in 2023, taking further steps to enhance and elevate customer experience through more personalised journeys in a comprehensive, all-encompassing digital ecosystem.

The new year will also see Al Rajhi Bank foray into Open Banking, fully equipped with the tech infrastructure and expertise to position itself as a strong competitor, and add value by enabling customers to explore digital ecosystem partnerships.