Saradar Bank freshens up branch with sweet S17 in Beirut
Lebanon’s Saradar Bank has launched its new branch concept in Beirut as it targets “modern, tech-savvy clientele”.
The pleasure principle
Located in Sodeco, S17 combines a café, a co-working space and a digital bank.
The idea is to offer self-service channels, networking and meeting areas – with free coffee, snacks and beverages.
The bank explains: “Why S17? Because 17 is the age when young people start thinking about real ways to make their aspirations a reality.”
It wants to bring some “pleasure” to the branch. It adds: “Like the pleasure you experience when you walk into your favourite restaurant or store, or when you go into a movie theatre or art gallery.”
Saradar adds that it plans to turn S17 into a platform where special events will be on offer all year long, such as recruiting fairs, personal development seminars, and finance workshops.
As reported in March last year, Saradar – formed as a result of a merger of Banque de l’Industrie et du Travail (BIT) and Near East Commercial Bank (NECB) – went live with Temenos’ T24 core banking system.
Saradar offers private, commercial and retail banking services.
Prior to the merger, BIT was a long-standing user of the SAB AT system from another core banking software provider, SAB.
Meanwhile, NECB signed for T24 in 2015. It also took Temenos Connect for digital banking channels and Insight BI for business intelligence and analytics.
BIT and NECB united in mid-2016 as Saradar.
T24 replaced the new bank’s “multi-system environment with a single, centralised core banking system”.
The project was led by Temenos and supported by its regional system integrator and partner, BankerWay.
