Founded in 1999, CrediMax was the first provider of premium services to credit card users in the Kingdom and, as a fully-owned and independent subsidiary of BBK, has continued to maintain its position as one of Bahrain banking’s greatest assets. We spoke to the company’s CEO, Ahmed Seyadi, about its latest service – eCrediMax.
Firstly, can you tell us the basics about eCrediMax and the reasons for introducing it?
It is a straightforward, simple service that we recently introduced. In fact, it›s actually our digital onboarding solution. The idea is that with the world shifting to digital commerce, it’s a way of providing more convenience to our clients. Instead of coming all the way to our physical contact sites to apply for our services, with just a few steps they can do it virtually from anywhere.
This is our first step towards a plethora of other digital services to come. We already have our main CrediMax mobile app, so digital onboarding is only one part of our longer term strategy when it comes to revamping and transforming our digital presence and interaction with our customers.
How will this particular app benefit people?
You don›t have to leave your office or home to apply for CrediMax products. That›s ultimately the basic service in a nutshell, without compromising on controls, security, credit assessment and more. It’s a huge time-saver, you don’t have to sit in traffic for hours just to travel a few kilometres for a menial service you can just do on your phone.
With eCrediMax, it takes exactly eight minutes to apply and your card will be delivered to you wherever you are. Not only that, you can eliminate the physical card completely if you desire and have a virtual one which is enabled through our e-wallet Benefit pay or accessories like Apple Pay, Fitbit etc.
How will eCrediMax compete with and streamline traditional financial services?
We are focusing on two main things. Firstly, payment acceptance. We are empowering the retail industry so that they have as many options as possible to accept payments so that they can deliver their services to their consumers. Secondly, to equip consumers with various means of payment. This has always been our core service basically and digital is the core of CrediMax since its establishment, because we›re not into cash. Unlike other banks, we are purely focusing on digital specific products and services and this is what makes us special.
CrediMax is very much a renowned financial service provider, but how does the introduction of eCrediMax, in particular, enhance your existing financial offerings?
We don’t see it as a differentiator, to be honest, but rather as a minimum that our customer must have. What we believe is the other milestones or the roadmap to come is what will make us different, in terms of quality of service and unique products. For example, iLead is a mobile app solution associated with pre-paid contactless cards (available on CrediMax Mobile App) that is designed to help parents teach the younger generations the value of money in a digital age as early as possible. It is aimed at the youth/children to help them manage their pocket money or allowance. It’s part of our strategic goal to include children financially as early as possible, to educate them in terms of financial responsibility and management.
How will eCrediMax safeguard its clients amongst a rise in cyber-crime and online theft?
Security is crucial in our line of business because this is how our clients trust us. So we have multiple layers; one of which is the technology-based security. We are PCI DSS certified, which is a mandate now in Bahrain for all issuers. The second layer is what we call fraud monitoring, which focuses on the behavioural and social engineering side of fraud attempts. Our team monitors transactions online 24/7 and over the years have cultivated numerous ways of predicting suspicious behaviour.
The third layer, which is very important in our view, is educating our clients and cardholders so they don’t fall for phishing scams and other attempts to obtain personal information.
