The Middle East is one of the most developing regions of Asia and the world in general. It owes its huge success to the proper management of resources and well-structured financial services in the region. For organizations offering financial services, there is a constant push for growth and increase in shareholder value, and the targets are companies that are able to improve process efficiency, build stronger customer relationships and use new regulatory demands as a driving force to facilitate market confidence and strengthening of the business.
A prominent Financial Service provider in the Middle East is the PwC, which acts as a business advisory; auditor and tax practice that help companies transform their shortcomings into business opportunities. It stands undisputed at the very top of its services, delivering services such as technical accounting, risk management, compliance, security processing, information risk and security among a countless list of services. PwC incorporates a network of specialists who specifically help the organization to create opportunities for growth and holistic development.
Take a closer look at the Islamic Finance, its success amounts to a whopping $1.2 trillion, with estimates on its asset value being $ 94.7 trillion. Clients in the Islamic financial services are international, regional as well as local and include real estate investment trusts, mutual funds as well as regulatory bodies.
Just like several most regions in Asia, students from all over the world have been a constant target of these firms. The companies mostly encourage people to apply online and can also get in touch with bankers through LinkedIn, and this has gone a long way in securing jobs for them.
There is a lot of pressure from these companies as they seek to connect with people at a local level, and the pressure is channeled to the government and business agree are agencies from across the globe. Over the years, banking has evolved in a great way and most payments done are digital as opposed to the physical, as it was years back. Many people in the Middle East have bank accounts, though not all countries, and this has aided much in this transformation journey.
There are a couple of challenges associated with the same though, and they have an adverse effect on the overall system if no tackled correctly. In Egypt for example, a huge part of the population have not embraced banking technology due to lack of trusts from the local banks. There also fears of money safety arising from the corruption cases associated with them. As a result, almost 94% of Egyptian transactions are done by cash. To tackle such a problem requires an in-depth understanding of the consumer’s mindsets but also their emotional attachment to their money. This has come up with strategies to curb the prejudices surrounding this critical area of the Egyptian economy, all in an effort to build trust in digital currency. The move has had a positive one as firms such as Dopay in London have gained roots in the market and have received back up by Barclays Bank to introduce cloud –based payroll services in Egypt.
