MEBIS 2025 Summit Ends With Clear Mandate: AI, Open Finance and Customer Experience Will Shape the Future of Banking

The 16th Annual Middle East Banking Innovation Summit (MEBIS 2025) concluded this week at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers after two days of high-impact discussions, case studies, and panel sessions.

Day Two brought a deep dive into cybersecurity, generative AI, open finance, cultural transformation, and customer-centric innovation, closing the summit with a clear message: banking transformation is here, and execution will define success. Day Two of MEBIS 2025 opened with “CISO Role Rebooted” by Olivier Busolini, Group Chief Information Security Officer at Mashreq, who underlined how the CISO has evolved from a compliance-focused guardian into a strategic leader shaping resilience, trust, and innovation across the banking enterprise.

In “Data Analytics and Generative AI: Shaping Decision-Making and Business Intelligence,” Dongjun (DJ) Choi of RAKBANK highlighted how generative AI, paired with advanced analytics, is enabling banks to forecast trends, personalise services, and support smarter decisions while also raising new questions of governance and ethical use.

Ben Gamble of Ververica showcased “Future-Proof Finance: Practical AI Applications in Banking Technology,” demonstrating how streaming data and AI are delivering real-time fraud detection, adaptive risk modelling, and hyper-personalised experiences.

The importance of culture was brought forward in a case study by Sarah Al Zaabi of Kuwait Credit Information Network (CINET), “Aligning Company Culture to Data Transformation,” which stressed that technology adoption is ineffective without mindset, values, and employee readiness.

A high-energy session, “Redefining Banking in the Digital Era: Insights From Malta’s Transformation Journey,” offered a global perspective, showing how financial institutions in Malta leveraged regulation, digital infrastructure, and innovation partnerships to reinvent customer engagement and competitiveness.

Later, a panel on “Open Finance: Unlocking Innovation with Real-World Use Cases” explored how open APIs and data-sharing frameworks are powering new services across insurance, pensions, and investments. Speakers also addressed how regulators and banks are collaborating to ensure customer trust and data security in open ecosystems.

This was followed by “Establishing a Data-Driven Culture in Banks: Transforming Insights into Action,” which outlined how governance, upskilling, and integrated workflows are turning data from an under-utilised resource into a driver of growth and agility.

ManageEngine’s session, “Empowering Banks with Secure, Compliant, and Automated IT Management,” examined how financial institutions can strengthen compliance and operational resilience by automating IT processes, reducing risks, and ensuring end-to-end governance.

The program concluded with “Customer-Centric Banking – Empowering the Next Generation of Bankers through Technology.” This panel emphasized how AI, mobile platforms, and automation are transforming the banker’s role and shaping customer expectations. The consensus: banks must deliver seamless, personalised, and intuitive experiences or risk irrelevance in a competitive digital economy.

“MEBIS 2025 has shown us that the future of banking is no longer a distant vision, it is unfolding right now,” said Shail Bisht, Regional Director at Expotrade, the organizer of MEBIS 2025. “Over the past two days, we’ve seen how banks are embracing AI, strengthening trust, and aligning culture with technology. The clear message is that execution will separate leaders from followers.”

As the summit concluded, delegates left with actionable insights, stronger networks, and a renewed focus on building resilient, data-driven, customer-centric financial institutions. The conversations at MEBIS 2025 will continue to ripple across boardrooms and strategy tables as banks across the Middle East prepare not just to adapt to change, but to lead it.