Dubai, 8th December 2015: 11th Annual OPEX 2015 – The Financial COO Event commenced yesterday at The Oberoi Hotel, Dubai. The event, rotating around the central theme of “The new order in operational transformation” started off with a special address on transforming banking operations into a turnaround digital operation by Sandeep Chouhan, Group Head of Operations and Technology at Mashreq PSC.

“Banks are witnessing dramatic changes and disruptions in their business models. Their customers are becoming more demanding and sophisticated as well. Banks are using digital: the power of social media, mobility, analytics and cloud to their advantage with the help of business process service providers to come out ahead.” With this view, Rajiv Vaid, VP and Global Head of Operations – Strategic Accounts, Business Process Services at Tata Consultancy Services and Prakash Venkatakrishnan, Head of Operations - Treasury & Trade Services, MENA region at Citi Bank engaged the audience with a joint presentation focusing on re-imagining banking operations.

One of the key highlights of the day - The Annual COO Panel focused on implementing a sound operations management system. The panel was moderated Rajiv Vaidand joined by COOs from Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Mashreq PSC, Finance House PJSC, Arab Bank, Saudi Hollandi Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank and Habib Bank AG Zurich.

Other sessions for the day focused on ways to put OPEX in the heart of the corporate strategy, process innovation, outsourcing and business improvement. These included intriguing presentations and interactive panel discussions by experts from Finesse, NCB Capital, Beehive, DMCC, Financial Services and Bank Sohar SAOG among others.

The conference has been sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services as the Platinum Sponsor, Mahindra Comviva as the Silver Sponsor, Finesse as the Supporting Sponsor, Spigraph and Fujitsu as the Bronze Sponsors, and NCR Corporation as the Networking Partner.

The global mobile payment transaction forecast is expected to reach $4.6 trillion in 2019, compared to $1.8 trillion in 2014, according to a recent study. The number of consumers using digital wallets is rising rapidly. Has the inflexion point been reached, wherein the mobile has become a mainstream payment option? Focusing on this, OPEX 2015 witnessed Kaustubh Kashyap, Vice President & Head of MENA and Kamaljeet Rastogi, Global Head Business Development, Mobile Financial Solutions at Mahindra Comviva elaborate on major trends shaping the growth of digital wallets and ways to address security and privacy concerns related to mobile payments.

The day concluded with a networking reception where the participants explored the opportunity to meet, network and establish lasting business relations.Today, the second day of the conference, will witness more presentations and panel discussions by senior experts from Commercial Bank of Kuwait, Banque Misr, Bank Albilad among others. Raju Ramesh, Co-Founder and CEO at Finesse will enlighten the audience with a presentation on measuring process efficiency and developing metrics.

This conference has been organized by Fleming.. Fleming Group recently re-branded it's existing brands under a single name – Fleming.. The new brand is an integration of Fleming Gulf, Fleming Europe, American Leaders and Kakushin. With the re-branding, the company aims to integrate it's effort to connect businesses worldwide with the best of knowledge, connections and opportunities, characterized by a new tagline - Critical Business Connections.

The conference covers all the major operational excellence challenges, issues and trends for the region's banking sector thus providing a platform for participants to learn, share and network with industry experts.