Kuwait’s largest bank, National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), recently launched the first comprehensive online banking service for corporate clients in the Middle East, the Watani Online Corporate system (WOLC), stated a press release. The WOLC will allow the bank’s corporate customers to perform enquiry and banking transactions electronically.
The system’s browser-based screens provide a synchronized view of a user’s account data. The WOLC system, built and developed in-house at NBK, provides online real-time enquiry functionality allowing customer to monitor their financial position and transaction history remotely. NBK’s customers can also initiate financial and non-financial transactions such as book transfers, telex transfers and salary processing.
WOLC uses Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Secured Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption and authentication technology to provide a secure environment. SSL provides channel encryption and server authentication using the 128-bit encryption, the highest allowed under international law, said Shaikha Al-Bahar, general manager of Corporate Banking Group at NBK.
The system also provides corporate customers with an automated verification and approval process to control the initiation and processing of instructions from the customer side. For security and process control purposes, WOLC provides an audit trail, highlighting all user actions in detail. The audit trail information includes the nature of the action, date and time the action was performed and the user ID of the initiator.
An additional security feature in WOLC is the transaction limit control. Every user is assigned a system transaction limit, which the system automatically tracks and enforces. There are two types of transaction limits provided by the system, limit per transaction and daily limit. There will be also a two-way e-mail messaging facility, provided through the system to facilitate the transfer of messages between corporate customers and the appropriate support area.
National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) was founded in 1952 as the first indigenous bank and the first joint stock company in Kuwait and the Gulf. It is the largest financial institution in Kuwait with effective market dominance in the commercial banking market. NBK’s local and international network includes branches, subsidiaries and representative offices in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Bahrain, Beirut, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand.
With capital resources in excess of 380 million Kuwaiti dinars ($1.3 billion), NBK is ranked amongst the top 300 banks in the world and the fourth amongst Arab banks. In 2000, NBK reported a record net profit of $330 million—one of the most profitable banks in the Arab World—with a return on average equity of 25.3 percent and total assets of $12.4 billion. NBK reported a record net profit of $275 million for the first three quarters of 2001. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
