From legacy to leadership:
the new banking playbook for MENA institutions
07 October 2025
In a recent webinar, we brought together experts from Microsoft and Publicis Sapient to explore how financial institutions across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are navigating digital transformation, the rise of AI and evolving customer expectations.
Harjit Kang, Head of Middle East & Africa, Mambu, was joined by Tiffany Carpenter, Senior Industry Advisor, Microsoft, and Rohit Mathew, Co-Lead MENA Financial Services, Publicis Sapient, to discuss the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities for legacy and digital-first banks.
This is an edited transcript of the conversation. You can watch or listen to the full webinar on demand.
What are the main trends you’re seeing in banking transformation today across the MENA region?
Harjit Kang (Mambu): We’re witnessing a huge wave of banking transformation in the Middle East, especially over the last two to three years. Transformation is not optional anymore - banks are modernising their entire front-to-back processes, not just the front-end.
Rohit Mathew (Publicis Sapient): Banks in the region have come a long way. In the past, they often took a siloed approach, focusing on isolated upgrades, like updating just their cards platform. Now, we’re seeing a shift. Banks are no longer just making short-term system improvements; instead, they’re prioritising changes that deliver real business value more quickly, rather than waiting years to see results.
The focus has moved from piecemeal upgrades to comprehensive, front-to-back modernisation. This means rethinking their business models, operating models, and technology stacks as a whole.
Tiffany Carpenter (Microsoft): First and foremost, cloud is no longer optional for banks, it’s essential. Many banks are migrating their legacy workloads to cloud platforms like Azure to reduce their data centre footprint, boost agility, and enable AI at scale. Embracing cloud-native banking allows for more flexible architectures, faster product launches, and deeper integration with fintech partners.
AI is now the main driver of transformation in banking. However, to fully leverage AI, banks need high-quality, unified data layers. As they modernise their core systems, banks are prioritising not just collecting data, but ensuring it is structured and usable for AI models. By adopting a “thin core” architecture, banks can reduce their reliance on outdated systems, address the challenge of “dirty data,” and unlock the full potential of AI at scale.
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