The Middle East banking sector faces a defining challenge: how to move from digital ambition to digital execution. Across the GCC, many banks find themselves running AI experiments that never reach production scale, while the broader opportunity is significant. PwC estimates that AI could contribute up to $320 billion to the Middle East economy by 2030. The gap between pilot and production is where value is being lost.
This execution challenge extends across multiple fronts. Legacy core systems create friction for Open Banking initiatives. Cloud adoption, while increasingly supported by regulators (both the UAE Central Bank and the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) have issued updated cloud computing frameworks in recent years) remains underutilised by many institutions. And across the region, financial institutions report meaningful skills gaps in the technology talent needed to accelerate transformation. Vision 2030 and equivalent national programmes are creating real urgency, yet many banks lack the cloud-native architecture to execute at the required pace without putting core operations at risk.
Customer expectations are shifting the competitive landscape just as rapidly. The rise of super apps like Careem, which has expanded from ride-hailing into payments, financial services and everyday commerce, is reshaping what GCC consumers expect from digital experiences. Digital-native banks like Wio Bank in the UAE are demonstrating what's possible when you build without legacy constraints. For established banks, this is no longer a future threat. It is the present competitive reality.
The question isn't whether Middle East banks should digitalize. Competitive pressure from digital-only banks, fintech challengers, and evolving customer expectations have settled that debate. The question is how to execute transformation at the required speed while maintaining Shariah compliance, operational stability, and customer trust.
This execution gap between business ambition and technology capability is where Neil Budd, CEO of Finshape, sees the greatest opportunity for banks across the region.
Budd joins Finshape with 25+ years of banking transformation experience from Finastra, Accenture, and other global consultancies. His appointment signals Finshape's evolution from a Central European digital banking provider into a global player serving 100+ financial institutions across 44 countries. In 2025, the company generated EUR 55 million in revenue with 30% year-on-year growth, recently acquiring the Realtime-XLS loyalty platform and forging a strategic partnership with Dubai Islamic Bank, the largest Islamic bank in the UAE.
"Banks are looking for technology partners they can trust for the long term," says Budd. "The question isn't whether to digitalize, but it's how to do it without creating more risk."
The Risk Mitigation Imperative
For large banks, wholesale replacement of core systems isn't just expensive, it's operationally risky. A single day of downtime can cost millions in revenue and lasting damage to customer trust. Yet standing still isn't an option when fintech challengers launch products in weeks while traditional banks take years.
Finshape's answer is its Agentic Digital Bank Operating System (DBOS), which operates as an orchestration layer above existing legacy infrastructure. Rather than forcing banks to replace proven core systems, DBOS orchestrates data from across those systems and delivers it through modern digital channels enabling rapid innovation without operational disruption.
The impact is tangible. In its partnership with Dubai Islamic Bank, Finshape's DBOS is enabling the bank to significantly accelerate its digital roadmap reducing the time required to launch new customer-facing services, creating a unified data layer that supports AI-driven personalisation, and providing the API infrastructure needed to participate in the region's growing embedded finance ecosystem. Where previously new product launches required lengthy core system integrations, the orchestration model allows the bank's teams to build and iterate at a speed that matches market expectations.
"The innovation layer has moved," Budd explains. "It's no longer happening in the core banking system. The digital platform has become the new centre of innovation — and increasingly, the integration point for ecosystem partnerships."