80pc of transactions will be digital in three years, says expert

Eighty per cent of the bank transactions from 2021 onwards could be digital in Bahrain if current advancement in technologies continues and growth in digitization of banks persists as expected, according to a prominent industry expert. “Digital banking is on the way up, so much so that it is now slowly replacing the traditional channels as the preferred method of banking,” said Salman Al Rasheed, a digital banking expert and head of Digital Banking at NBB. Speaking to Tribune, Al Rasheed explained how further digitization should be expected in the banking industry.

He said that although digital banking would never fully replace traditional channels, it may start to dominate the industry with 80pc of the transactions being digital. The pace at which the digitization is moving could mean that this could happen within 3 to 5 years. No data is available on the current level of digital banking in the country but it should be substantially lower than 80 per cent. A rapid increase in digitization can be expected in the next three years to reach 80 per cent, he said.