Press Releases

<p>The CEO of Riyad Bank, Mr. Tariq bin Abdul Rahman Al-Sadhan press interview with Al-Bayan Economic Magazine.</p><p><strong>1. How has the Corona pandemic affected the business of Arab banks in general and your bank in particular, and how did you manage to deal with it?</strong></p><p>Dealing with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic was certainly not easy, and this required special and exceptional measures with regard to the banking sector.</p><p>But the most important thing is the rearrangement of priorities for us as banking institutions, as our attention at the beginning of the pandemic focused on how to preserve the safety of our employees and customers and provide the necessary environment and requirements to prevent the virus, in relation to the royal orders and directives of the government health authorities, which required Adopting a series of steps, whether awareness-raising or procedural, related to how operations are conducted in all buildings and work sites, including procedures related to remote work and adherence to social distancing directives.</p><p>In a parallel path, we have sought to harness all our capabilities in order to support the national economy and provide what is necessary to maintain the sustainability of the business sectors, particularly with regard to small and medium enterprises, by supporting government initiatives and the incentive programs adopted by the Ministry of Finance and the Saudi Central Bank in this regard, and I believe that this matter represented Our highest priority as Riyad Bank, and we were able, praise be to God, to achieve significant and remarkable achievements that strengthened the collective national effort to contain the effects of the pandemic at the economic level.</p><p>The next priority is our ability to continue to provide our services to clients in a flexible and usual manner by adhering to the imposed health precautions and social distancing measures, and our responsibility towards our customers and our community. At that point, we started to harvest the results for our moving early strategy towards digital transformation, as the pandemic represented a golden opportunity to confirm the integrity of our proactive approaches promoting reliance on digital banking as the future of banking at Riyad Bank, it constituted an effective and reliable alternative for us to continue providing our services as usual.</p><p>I can confirm that despite the new and unprecedented reality and concepts that the pandemic has brought about. However, the Saudi banking sector proved during the pandemic a solidity and durability that reflected the strength of this sector and its superior ability to overcome challenges and contain crises, so it is sufficient to look at the results achieved during the year 2020.</p><p><strong>2. What are the emerging challenges that were not present in the past years?</strong></p><p>Undoubtedly, the "Covid 19" pandemic has imposed new challenges, perhaps for the first time, to the entire world. However, at "Riyad Bank" we always uphold our positive and optimistic vision by focusing attention on how to create opportunities for growth and take a further step forward. from this point; And as I mentioned earlier, I find that the pandemic prompts us to accelerate our steps in digital transformation and enrich the customer experience by providing new and innovative concepts for banking that give them tangible savings in effort, time, efficiency, and added value. Thanks to our early experience in this aspect expressed by our strategy, I can say that we are able to achieve a breakthrough in this field based on our capabilities and readiness.</p><p><strong>3. With the growing dependence on digital technology, do you intend to close a number of branches and replace them with digital branches?</strong></p><p>Digital transformation is a comprehensive and broad concept to bring about a qualitative change in the banking industry, and it is based on the principle of development and not closure or cancellation, and we believe that banking branches will take another form within this concept in terms of form, content, work mechanism, service delivery and meeting customer needs by increasing the self-implementation, immediate and safe Banking operations in a more interactive manner, but this approach must be implemented in a deliberate and gradual manner to ensure a smooth transition.</p><p><strong>4. The retail banking sector has been affected a lot this year with the spread of the Corona virus. What are the bank’s plans regarding it? What about the most prominent new products and technological banking services that the bank aims to launch?</strong></p><p>Continuing "innovation" is one of the main pillars of Riyad Bank, and we consider it as one of our main growth engines that support our competitiveness and enhance our market share. As I mentioned in the past, the pandemic, despite its challenges, pushes us strongly to think outside the box to work on transforming these challenges into opportunities for growth, especially in light of the remarkable economic transformation that the Kingdom is witnessing today thanks to its 2030 vision, with the accompanying launch of promising horizons in the business environment. Specifically, with regard to entrepreneurship, as well as small and medium enterprises, which we believe need innovative solutions that depend heavily on the prospects for digital transformation.</p><p><strong>5. We have started to witness an increasing number of mergers and acquisitions among Arab banks, what do you think?</strong></p><p>In theory and in principle, the tendency to create giant banking entities by integrating human and financial capabilities, and components between the existing entities is a strategic and insightful issue, especially in light of the increasing competitiveness in the banking industry sector and the growing economic openness in the world, which gives greater opportunity for local entities to expand. With their target markets. The Saudi market has early and successful experiences in this aspect. However, the most important criterion for ensuring the success of any emerging or potential merger experiment is to subject it to a deep study, define its objectives accurately, and carefully evaluate its potential effects, in order to produce a mature, guaranteed, value and feasible experience for all parties.</p><p><strong>6. Is there a specific strategy that you will adopt for the coming years?</strong></p><p>We, at Riyad Bank, have launched a long-term strategy and are working to implement it seriously, and we consider it as our window to the future. This strategy is based on four pillars: to be the best choice for customers, the highest in digital empowerment, the most profitable, and the most efficient.</p><p>I can confidently say that Riyad Bank has proven, through its early adoption of this strategy, which came suitable with the recent challenges the world has gone through, its insightful and deep vision towards the inevitability of initiative and change.</p>