ICD ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF ITS INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INNOVATION COMPETITION TITLED “ICD’S FINNOVATION AWARD 2020

ICD announced the winners of its 1st annual global financial innovation award competition, entitled “ICD’s Global Finnovation Award 2020”.

All financial institutions in ICD’s private network were invited to submit their financial innovations and financing solutions that contribute to the institution’s sustainability and growth and significantly impact their communities. The solutions were assessed against a number of criteria out of which the contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was of high importance.  

 “The Finnovation Award values the ideas, inspiration, and leadership of financial institutions who drive the improvement of the financial industry,” said ICD’s CEO Ayman Sejiny. “exposing innovative solutions that were successfully implemented in a member country and exchange the same with other member country is critical to meet the rapidly changing demands of end-users and hence to keep them financially inclusive” he added.

The Award was concluded after completing the evaluation by the innovation team, the shariah advisor, and the development experts within ICD. The announced winners for 2020 include:

  1. An Innovation solution from Alif Bank of Tajikistan titled “E-wallet alif.mobi, Salom retail loan card”
  2. An Innovation solution from Maldives Islamic Bank of the Maldives titled “lifestyle financing to meet consumer demand”
  3. An Innovation solution from BIDAYA Home Finance of Saudi Arabia titled “Data-driven marketing campaigns”
  4. An Innovation solution from Green Delta Capital Limited of Bangladesh titled “GD Planner”
  5. An Innovation solution from Wifak International Bank of Tunisia titled “The Card Plus and the Salary ++ Card”

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Alif Bank’s Innovation

Alif Bank introduced a new product Salom in 2018, an installment card with no interest (by sharia compliance) – was offered to the Tajikistan market. Alif provides interest-free financing to clients and receives commissions from the stores instead. The card has gained about 100,000 users for the entire period of its existence from 2018 to the current time, and it is the most popular payment card in Tajikistan

Maldives Islamic Bank’s innovation

The bank changed the process to make customers the bank’s agent buy goods so that they could take possession on behalf of the bank on the day of purchase itself. The change effectively reduced the disbursement time to the same day! Coupled with the maximum approval time of 2 days, customers in the Maldives could now avail an Islamic financial facility within 3 days of application! This level of turnaround time and service was unmatched that proved hugely successful for MIB. The close coordination with the companies helped MIB bring a lot of customers to the Islamic financing who either shifted their salary accounts with the MIB or preferred to opt for Sharia’h compliant financial solutions due to its appeal.

BIDAYA Home Finance’s innovation

Bidaya is utilizing mortgage promotions thoroughly by engaging with consumers through very advanced programmatic digital campaigns. Standing out begins with marketing. Social media and videos have been huge in home finance marketing as Bidaya’s online marketing strategy makes use of video content for most of its campaigns. We have diversified our marketing strategy so that we can target and reach the audiences that we can best serve Before Bidaya begins a marketing campaign we understand our audience and their behavior. We look into every detail. Which platforms are visited by our target market age demographic, we see which devices they are using to engage with lenders and then we develop our programmatic advertising campaigns that are completely data-driven. At Bidaya, many innovations have been predicted for the Home financing industry as a whole.

Green Delta Capital’s innovation

A discretionary portfolio management scheme provides a unique combination of equity investment and health insurance service.  The scheme is designed to encourage saving or capital market investment with a small amount of monthly scheme within a regular interval & let client’s savings grow with a disciplined and structured investment process

ICD offers the winners a platform to share their innovations and encourages other financial institutions and Fintech startups to exchange innovative products and services. It also provides them with free access to ICD’s Bridge Platform that lists their own investment and finance products and services to a wider population worldwide.  We hope these two global exchange platforms foster a sense of collaboration for development.

The top four winning innovations will be featured on ICD’s Finnovation website’s front page until next year’s award. Click here to see the featured innovations.

These innovations, truly, deserved high distinction and Awards as they encourage other financial institutions to envisage innovation as a prime engine for growth and sustainability in a rapidly changing age.

Announced Winners will be celebrating their Prestigious Award during the Islamic Development Bank Group Annual Meetings in Uzbekistan on September 4, 2021.  In a special ceremony designed for this occasion, Mr. Ayman Sejiny, the CEO of ICD will hand the CEOs of the winning financial institutions their award and souvenirs in the presence of H.E. the President of IsDB Group, government officials, seniors, and executives.  This award is introduced and sponsored by ICD to show the financial industry that ICD is always there to support their growth and sustainability with an aim to collaborate in delivering the development goals and objectives.  Hence, ICD encourages all financial institutions with highly distinguished innovations to participate in the 2nd edition of the ICD’s global Finnovation Award that will be launched in Q4 of the year 2021.  For more information, please visit the Finnovation Award website at www.innovativeFIs.net