Since 2018, when they embarked on a new growth strategy based on innovation to add value to  very banking experience, Sohar International has been positioned as Oman’s fastest-growing bank and the second largest in terms of assets. Today, their strong financial performance, constantly evolving customer-centric portfolio, state-of-the-art digital banking platforms and strategic international partnerships are changing the way banking is done in the Sultanate and have started to be recognized both on a national and international level. Last year, Sohar International won the “Best Investment Bank in Oman 2023” award at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence, as well as the ‘Industry Leader in Digital Banking’ and ‘Best Bank in Growth’ at the renowned Oman Banking & Finance Awards 2023. In conversation with Mr. Ahmed Al Musalmi, CEO of Sohar International, we expanded on the bank’s philosophy, success and their most recent innovative efforts.

One World Media: Being the fastest growing bank in Oman, what has been the key behind your success?

Right from the beginning we sought to redefine the vision of the bank to become a world leading Omani service company that helps people, customers and communities grow and prosper. Our vision is underpinned by four key pillars:

First, to reimagine the business of banking we have to be progressive in our thinking, adapting to changes by learning about trends in order to embrace and capitalise on them. We believe banking is necessary, but banks are not. Therefore, you need to be constantly relevant and resilient if you are to survive and thrive.

Secondly, we reevaluate the value chains through analytics and business insights to design and develop banking and beyond banking solutions that complement individual lifestyles and offer institutions and corporates strategies to run and continue growing their businesses.

Thirdly, we aim to reconnect to customers by adding more value, so whatever we do should be connected to the customer’s life. We make sure that we segment our customers to allow us to focus on them and deliver a superior experience. Additionally, by investing substantially in technology, we complement our physical distribution channels to scale up and reach out to customers both nationally and abroad, as we aim to do in our new offices in Saudi Arabia.

Finally, we have made a high investment in our people’s learning and development to skill them up, setting up an academy to support this continual process. Overall, we have not chosen an easy path, we have chosen the right path for us.

OWM: As you seek to expand not only regionally, but globally, how do you utilize Oman’s strategic benefits?

As we grow beyond borders, first and foremost, we want to follow our customers and investors. The objective is to take Oman to the world through our customers, and bring the world to Oman. If you look at Oman, we have many free trade agreements, as Oman diversifies and seeks to reduce its dependence on oil and gas. There are exponential amounts of economic activity stemming from Vision 2040, as Oman attracts investment from multiple countries. We want to focus on all of these corridors; investment and trade across multiple markets that either government or corporate institutions do outside. Then, we follow them to make sure that whatever we do outside has relevance to the domestic presence here. We do this by using technology and partnerships.

OWM: Besides partnerships, you will soon be completing a merger and acquisition of HSBC. What will be the key benefits arising from this?

First and foremost the synergies: the two banks balance sheets put together show clearly the synergies across capital funding, cost and revenue. Given our strategy and the focus we have, this will allow us to penetrate a larger customer base by helping us service more customers across the ecosystem. On the other hand, from an economic standpoint, I believe the market needs consolidation. Bigger banks can go a long way to add value to the economy and advance Oman’s economic diversification program. We are driving that strategy to make sure that we are able to actively contribute and become a catalyst in this process.

OWM: How do you see Sohar facilitating FDI into Oman and supporting economic diversification?

We have actively done this across different economic sectors such as manufacturing. For example, within Greenfield Projects we have been able to attract new investors into the country and facilitate the whole investment process for them to set up manufacturing plants, start producing, recruiting local talent and exporting from Oman. The same has occurred within tourism and many other sectors. We partnered with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to set up the Invest Oman Office Centre as part of our drive to participate and play a leading role in promoting Oman’s Diversification program. FDI is an extremely important piece of this economic diversification and we in particular can play a key role in advancing it. This is at the centre of our strategy.

Above all, we will continue to support our vision of being a dynamic, vibrant and tech savvy institution. It is said it’s not the strongest or the most intelligent that survive but those who are adaptive to change. I believe that’s what defines us.