How video is helping to modernize Middle East banking
2021-12-22

Dennis Choi, General Manager, IDIS Middle East & Africa

Despite the impact of COVID-19, the Middle East banking sector is the midst of an exciting transformation. As oil prices dipped, the need for diversification particularly for financial institutions became even more imperative and any reticence around the modernisation investments faded. At the same time, the sector has acted swiftly to tighten compliance, to counter misplaced global perceptions that Middle East banking regulations are lax when it comes to money laundering and terrorist financing.

With less reliance on cash, an emerging fintech sector, fewer branches, and an exponential increase in the number of ATMs, the region’s banking landscape is changing dramatically.  And retail banking is set to become even more crucial in the years to come as Arab banks look to extend their personal loan portfolios with an emphasis on mortgages and lending to SMEs.

With any sector transformation there are opportunities for physical security upgrades, yet Middle East retail banking is particularly interesting. 

Systems integrators need to understand that while new technologies maybe powering the march of digital banking, the financial sector globally is conversative. For Middle Eastern banking success, compliance with national, regional, and global regulations is essential. 

Compliance is key to raising capital for economic diversification programs and for Arab banks to position themselves as serious players in global financial markets.  And that compliance extends to physical security measures.

 

A compliance-driven market calls for enhanced video surveillance  

In 2018, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) set out its regulatory framework to support financial institutions in their efforts to have appropriate governance and build a robust infrastructure to enable necessary detective and preventive controls.  The framework also relates to physical security measures, and in particular to video surveillance and cybersecurity. This meant Saudi banks had to update their video surveillance capabilities to full-HD 24/7/365 network surveillance by 2020.  

The National Commercial Bank, now re-branded as the Saudi National Bank (SNB) following its acquisition of Samba Financial Group, was the first to upgrade using IDIS technology ahead of the government’s 2020 deadline 

This quickly led to SAMA regulations and SNB’s roll-out process and technology choices setting the gold standard for other Arab banks’ surveillance upgrades.

 

The right surveillance equipment for harsh environments

For larger banks a phased and smooth approach is essential, minimising disruption to customers and guaranteeing no loss of video coverage during upgrades – failures that could result in stiff penalties from regulators.  

While each Gulf State’s compliance differs most regulations include the need to live stream, retrieve footage, administer, manage and control entire estates (including ATMs) from a centralised environment. At the same time, branch managers and security personnel need distributed functionality to monitor and manage day-to-day operations and deal with safety and security events locally.  

Storage requirements range from 180 days up to a full year, allowing banks to maintain a complete record and audit trail of events and transactions.

So cybersecure and stable recording is critical, and banks and their integration partners must carefully consider recording platforms that include RAID, redundancy, and failover technologies protecting against a range of fault conditions.  

Hardware, including equipment covering ATMs located in remote areas, needs to withstand extreme low and high temperatures, and dusty conditions or sandstorms.

NVRs and encoders are proving to be a cost-effective solution for maintaining coverage during migration, while specialist PC servers and powerful NVRs with inherent redundancy are giving banks the reliable and stable recording platforms they need to meet the latest compliance requirements.   Low HDD failure rates, extended warranties, and minimal maintenance requirements also mean fewer engineer callouts, which results in significant savings where branches and ATMs are spread over wide geographic areas.

To provide the forensic detail that regulations demand cameras need to be able to cope with the common challenge of fluctuating light, so it’s important to test WDR and IR performance in varied environments. This is particularly the  case with internal parking lots, where security controllers want to clearly capture license plate information in low light and  changing light conditions.  For standalone and drive-through ATMs it’s important that pinhole, modular cameras combined with compact NVRs integrate with ATMs to capture crisp footage of patrons even in glaring sunlight, along with transaction data. This allows security teams to retrieve footage and clearly identify persons or vehicles of interest when necessary.

Rapid and simple implementation is a vital consideration with large scale projects. Plug-and-play technology speeds up deployment and also streamlines cybersecurity measures and eliminates common cyber vulnerabilities.  End-to-end solutions, rather than a mix and match, are worth careful consideration because they reduce the training burden and eliminate the need for hundreds of installation and maintenance engineers to have a deep understanding of network routing and switching. In turn this reduces complexity and costs.

And end-to-end solutions usually benefit from propriety protocols and specialist databases making them inherently more cybersecure.

 

Flexible VMS delivering a low total cost of ownership

Financial institutions always tend to look toward proven technology, which is why SNB has welcomed many Arab banks to its headquarters in Riyadh to share best practice and help counterparts understand its rollout program and technology choices, while showcasing its state-of-the-art control room.

The ambitious transformation of the sector involves significant investment so it’s not surprising that banks want their hardware and software to deliver a low total cost of ownership.

At the heart of any surveillance solution is the VMS. Integrators should look for a VMS that is affordable yet flexible enough to integrate thousands of legacy third-party cameras with the ability manage thousands of IP devices without excessive upfront costs, recurring license agreements and device connection fees.

ATM’s located in remote areas, often rely on satellite connectivity, so integrators need to consider bandwidth limitations and ensure features include optimised network bandwidth with dynamic multi-stream control, meaning the system will automatically detect overloads and helps prevent network strain. H.265 is essential, along with additional compression technologies that further reduce the burden on bandwidth as well as storage.

 

Scalable and futureproof video solution

Scalability also is also proving critical. When NCB acquired Samba Financial Group it created the largest bank in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi National Bank (SNB). Having a scalable VMS allowed the bank to swiftly plan an upgrade at 72 additional branches and 534 ATMs to standardise and integrate surveillance operations into its centralised control room, and continue to meet SAMA requirements. 

Systems integrators need to give financial institution the assurance that their VMS won’t lead to exponentially rising costs if they need to handle more devices or manage additional sites.   Consider a VMS that comes with enterprise-class yet cost-efficient federated, failover and video wall services, intuitive yet multi-task operations in control rooms, and ease-of-use for non-security staff at branches.

IDIS is well-versed in meeting the requirements of the SAMA framework, the Jordan Public Security Directorate (PSD), Qatar Security Systems Department of the Ministry of the Interior (SSD-MOI), and SIRA in the United Arab Emirates. To find out more, you can meet the IDIS Middle East team on the Ingram Micro stand S1-H16 at Intersec on 16-18 January 2022 in Dubai.

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