Critical Analysis of CIO Interview Report - IMAT5206 Module

This report presents a critical analysis of an interview with the CIO of the Central Bank of Bahrain, focusing on the challenges and opportunities in digital financial technology. The report explores the bank's IT history, particularly its adoption of electronic banking and digital financial advice, and identifies key themes such as cryptocurrency exchange issues, including liquidity, trading fees, and security concerns. The analysis examines the positive and negative aspects of financial technology implementation, discusses issues within the Management Information System (MIS) like lack of strategy and integration challenges, and provides recommendations for operational excellence and new business models. The report highlights the CIO's perspectives on fintech, cybersecurity, and the bank's strategic direction in the global financial market, emphasizing the importance of addressing market saturation, regulatory compliance, and consumer service in the evolving digital landscape.

Running head: CIO INTERVIEW
CIO INTERVIEW
Name of the Student
‘Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
Central Bank of Bahrain faced severe issues in digital financial technology. Among them,
cyber-security threats, infrastructure and expertise in Information Technology, big data, the
transition to digital banking are the most important ones (Lin 2020). The cybersecurity threat is
the most important threat among other threats in the financial sector. Hackers are implementing
the latest technologies to hack the financial data of a particular financial organisation. It is
responsible to decrease the popularity of the organisation. Many financial companies are using
outdated IT infrastructure with a lack of hardware and software components. With the help of
these resources, it is very difficult to execute the IT services for a financial company. It does not
have many security features. It offers a huge amount of vulnerabilities to the IT infrastructure of
that particular financial organisation. It may happen because the authority is not interested to pay
money for purchasing the latest hardware and upgrading the latest version of the software. Big
data has a significant amount of risks because it is very difficult for a company to sort a large
amount of data. Sometimes due to lack of infrastructure a bank or a financial organisation is not
able to migrate into digital banking.
In this particular essay, the interview of the CIO of the Central Bank of Bahrain is
chosen. In this report, identification of themes and view are discussed (Miranda et al. 2020). The
recent overview of the IT history of the company is discussed. Issues and problems of MIS of the
company are discussed. In this particular essay, future strategy and directions for MIS are
discussed.
Identification of themes and views

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The theme issues in cryptocurrency exchanges. Yashmeen AI Shareef, the head of fintech
and innovation unit of Central Bank of Bahrain gave an interview for the crypto-currency
exchange issues in 2019. He mentioned that fintech is providing tremendous effort for modifying
consumer experiences. It creates an extreme challenge to the outdated business processes. He
also mentioned that traditional banking sectors were challenged by some innovative IT-related
technologies. It made the banking the sector scalable. It also helped to increase market
responsiveness. In 2017, the Central Bank of Bahrain increased the fintech activity by
constructing the first sandbox of the region. It gave a virtual space to the bank. It was very
helpful to perform the testing operation of technology-based financial products in the market of
Bahrain. He mentioned that this methodology did not contain any amount of risk for national as
well as international organisations (Nájera-Sánchez 2020). The CBB had its first graduate from
the sandbox. The first complaint came from Sharia for the exchange of cryptocurrency. In 2017,
Amazon Web Services arrived in Bahrain and it supported the existing fintech of cryptocurrency
exchange. It offered a huge amount of connectivity and less amount of latency. This was the first
AWS area in the Middle East zone. AI Shareef said that the target of Bahrain was to move
further and the nation was wanted to work in global manner. In 2018, the Bahrain Economic
Development Board signed an agreement with the Government of Maharastra, India regarding
this matter and another one with Digital Jersey. He also mentioned that the bank was
participating in the global financial markets which were working through the global pilot project
of cryptocurrency.
The bank took some joint policies to resolve the issues related to the exchange of crypto-
currency. He said in the interview that some companies did not want to move to their home
regions due to the market saturation in the exchanging of crypto-currency issues. They decided

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to keep themselves inside the GCC. Bahrain got the priority because other companies would
enhance diversity.
IT history of the bank
The bank provided electronic banking or e-banking that referred to the small banking
products as well as services with the help of electronic channels (Somanje et al. 2020). It
included lending, account management, financial advice, and many others with the help of
electronic banking. With the help of their e-banking facility, a consumer could perform payment
of bills, payment in online shopping and many others. It was performed with the help of
electronic money.
Electronic money was one of the most important IT services provided by the Central
Bank of Bahrain. They preserved this money inside the computer system of the bank. It outdated
the use of physical currency (Vuong and Sid 2020). The bank authority told that it had a huge
amount of security features and no risks were associated with it. The consumer could use this
currency for various purposes. It could be changed by flat currency. The bank authority
monitored the transactions with the help of their electronic processing systems.
The banking authority provided some directives related to “Digital Financial Advice”. It
followed the industry consultation procedure (Lemke and Werner 2020). It was an important step
that was related to the digitization of the banking sector. They provided the intelligent
automation of financial advice. It could be performed by using automated tools that used several
logics and methodology. Mr. Kahlid Ahmed, the Executive Director of the bank said that the
new regulations offered digital financial bits of advice that obtained the license. It offered
various services to investors. The latest rules were providing the security and controlling of the

4CIO INTERVIEW
use of Artificial Intelligence. These were integrated into the software programs. It could be
performed with the help of digital advisory tools. They also expanded procedures of digital
financial services so that a consumer could have access to the smart services from the bank.
These rules were treated as the financial standards in the top-rated financial branches of this
bank. It helped the bank to give the position of the leading financial organisation of the Middle
East region.
A detailed discussion of the theme
Exchanging of cryptocurrency technology
Cryptocurrency is an important feature of digital financial technology. The Central bank
of Bahrain faced lots of issues in the exchange of cryptocurrency. Liquidity is a vital point for
this particular part. They found that there was a lack of liquidity in the cryptocurrency exchange
of the bank. It is occurred due to the lack of an imbalanced environment. Due to the less number
of liquidity, orders are not placed or executed at the desired time span. Recent research says that
thirty-six percent of the crypto traders are frustrated with the issue of liquidity on the behalf of
exchanges (Kumar, Sachan and Kumar 2020). It leads to a huge number of holders to manipulate
the financial data of the bank. It automatically decreases the popularity of the bank. With less
amount of liquidity, markets become more volatile and observe a huge amount of price
slippages. In the case of exchanging of cryptocurrency, a huge amount of exchange can lead to a
large number of security issues. For this, the bank authority has to provide a lump sum amount of
money. Trading fees are another most critical issue in the area of cryptocurrency exchanging.
The fees are ranging from 0.25% to 3% in a single trade. Fewer amounts of fees or no fees are
responsible for increasing the liquidity. It helps a large number of investors to manipulate the

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liquidity rates and it leads to a great of the bank. Cryptocurrencies are responsible to make the
transaction less costly. Due to the rapid growth of the exchange of cryptocurrency, it is very
difficult for the bank authority to provide the best consumer service to the company. It gives
huge lags in the risk of consumer service.
Summary of his interview
He says many points regarding this implementation of financial technology. He mentions
financial technology is very important for enhancing consumer experiences. It faces some direct
challenges to the outdated business. He says that continuous innovation provides the company
with some specific challenges (Kohn, Leibovici and Szkup 2020). They face some issues in
scalability and market responsiveness for new financial technologies. He mentioned that Sharia
complained about the crypto-currency exchange of the bank. It had an entire operational license.
He said that the nation of Bahrain wanted to work globally. This bank participated in global
financial forums. They developed some joint policies for the development of financial
technology for the bank. He highlighted that a global pilot program was implemented for new
products and services. He mentioned that, due to market saturation, some financial technologies
cannot be implemented. The bank tries to implement inside their organisation which gives them
a good initialization. The latest products can be tested inside the global regulatory sandbox of the
bank.
Positive and negative points of the theme
There are lots of advantages of financial technology. These are as follows:
 It prevents the consumer of Central Bank of Bahrain from any kind of risk that no
existing bank of that region will offer (Ibrahim and AlOmari 2020).

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 With the help of this technology, the bank authority gives financial as well as emotional
support to their consumers. They also provide some advice related to this.
 The remaining amount of money will be returned to the consumers
 The knowledge of the consumers becomes more communal which helps to prevent
negative things.
 With the help of this technology, the bank authority provides a huge amount of security
by implementing security in mobile payments. It helps to increase consumer satisfaction
to the bank.
 It helps the bank authority to reduce the expenditure of operation.
The disadvantages of this technology are as follows:
 Many times, it is found that financial technologies of the bank are not at all secured
(Hossain et al. 2020). It is happened due to the lack of technical knowledge of that
particular technology.
 Due to large office premises, a huge amount of operating costs may be applicable.
The bank authority may have to face a huge amount of overhead costs for competing
with flexible technology.
 Some parts of the bank are highly regulated industries. It affects the agile feature of
the bank. It also affects the efficiency of the bank.
Issues of Management Information System
 Lack of strategy
Due to a lack of strategy, the bank author is not able to implement financial technology
(Barman 2020). The leaders of this technology have sound knowledge regarding various

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tools that are implemented for this particular technology. But using that tool can be a big
deal for the bank authority. This bank does not have a separate technical support team to
provide the technical support to implement this technology.
 Not meeting organisation requirements
This technology plays an important role in the Central Bank of Bahrain (Anbumalar,
Vignesh and Hassan 2020). Finance team of the bank is totally depending on this
technology. If the technology is not efficient to the organisation then it is very difficult
for the bank to do the financial tracking of the consumers. It can lead to not meeting the
requirement of the consumers.
 Adding with brand new technologies
If the bank authority wants to integrate the financial technology with other IT technology
then it is very difficult for the banking authority to implement this technology (Agyei et
al. 2020). It may happen due to the lack of knowledge in the new technologies of the
bank. The tools may involve some general administrative tools like Microsoft Office and
also some specific tools like accounting tools, CRM tools and many others.
These are issues that the CIO should focus on in the interview.
Recommendation for MIS
 Provides an operational excellence
The CIO of the Central Bank of Bahrain should adopt some strategies related to the
operational excellence for implementing financial technology (Adedoyin and
Ezenwakwelu 2020). It helps them to get the highest profitability to the bank.

8CIO INTERVIEW
 New services and business models for the bank
CIO of the bank should instruct the financial team of the bank to adopt the new services
with the help of information technologies (Abazeed 2020). There are different types of
new business models are required which helps the CIO improve their financial
technology.
Conclusion
CIO of the bank has given an interview for the implementation of the financial
technology within their organisation. They raised the issue of exchanging the cryptocurrencies in
the financial technology sector. They implemented lots of IT technologies in their banking
services to enhance their consumer services. There are some issues related to their MIS system.
But he did not highlight that one in his interview. Some recommendations are highlighted for
improving this system.

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