Feras Al Batch

Experience

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  Mashreq Bank

  Feb 2005 - Dec 2021

  • Handle the automation of all regulatory reporting requirement for central banks of UAE, KUWAIT, BAHRAIN, and QATAR. • Bridge the communication gaps between Busines-Finance and Technology• Enhance data quality by reducing manual intervention.• Led the automation of the regulatory reporting processes which resulted in a drastic reduction of TAT for reports submission (reports that were ready only on the 3rd/4th business day, are now ready on 1st calendar day!)• Many tedious, time-consuming tasks were automated increasing efficiency by more than 100%• Worked with various units to reach a ‘single-version of truth’ and a unified data source for Regulatory, Management and Risk reporting• Gather project requirements from users to fully understand their needs• Work with IT to enhance the data workflow, and to design, develop and implement new processes• Lead meetings with development teams, business stakeholders and operational units to determine priorities, timelines, and budgets.• Overlook an entire project lifecycle from conception to integration• Provide user training and post go-live support• Automated a process for the yearly planning that used to take 2-3 days of working and ended up taking less than 15 minutes with a minimal user interaction and subsequently, less human errors!• Introduced and managed the Mashreq Employee Engagement initiative for 3 years which aimed to increase interaction between the teams within Central Accounts Unit, and enhance the overall feel about the workplace, this was appreciated and then followed by other units as well. Show less • Automation and enhancement of all processes related to the various Business Finance units across the bank like Retail, Corporate, Int’l Business and Treasury.• Leading all finance-related system developments, upgrades & implementation of new solutions, including the implementation of OFSAA modules of Funds Transfer Pricing (FTP) and setup of its policies, rules and reports, as well as the Assets and Liabilities Management (ALM) module and its ALCO-related functions and reporting (like Liquidity Gap Analysis, Interest Sensitivity and Shock Scenarios)• Coordination between Finance, Business & IT for all reporting requirements.• Consolidation of the bank-wide Balance Sheets and P&L plans and tracking of business group performance against it.• Reduced the Balance Sheet & P&L daily report preparation time from 1-2 hours down to 10 minutes by upgrading the data sources and reworking all the manual efforts.• Automated the FTP process for countries where OFSAA was not yet implemented due to system limitations, by providing a solution that reduced said processing time from 5 hours to 15 minutes!• Automated processes related to Central Bank of Kuwait where it involved a manual importing of data from more than 30 files, this used to take around 1.5 hours to complete, reworked it to be done with a single click taking less than 5 minutes!• Represented Business Finance units in the Core Banking upgrade project (iFlex), to make sure all their needs are met, this included Requirement Gathering, Test Cases preparation, UAT, changes required to existing processes/systems for go-live, and post go-live support.• Worked with IT to enhance the existing reporting processes for the monthly P&L/Balance Sheet reporting process reducing the overall TAT from 5 days to 2 day• Worked with IT and related units to enhance the Planning process, resulting in the closure of the annual planning process before the year end, for the first time in 5 years! Show less • Managed most MIS reports and business analysis pertaining to Retail Business Group, with a special focus on Sales and Distribution Units, this covered, amongst others:  Sales & Revenue Analysis Acquisition Vs. Attrition Developed and introduced new KPI’s on various levels  Performance tracking across all levels, regional, branch-wise and individuals Profitability Reporting/Analysis on various cuts: Branch, Product, Region, Schemes/Promotions...Etc. Product Portfolio tracking Variance Analysis Trend Analysis “What-If” Scenario-Analysis to evaluate the profitability of a proposed incentive scheme along with dynamic variables to see the impact on the policy changes on-the-fly!• Re-worked and automated many incentive calculations processes from the ground-up, increasing efficiency without sacrificing quality, which increased the efficiency of incentive processing by more than 75% impacting more than 600 staff.• Worked with HR to ensure a timely payout for eligible staff, which ultimately drove more business.• Lead the Sales Force Automation (SFA) project which helped management get a better insight on business, while helping the ground staff keep a near-live feed of their achievement vs. rewards.• Worked with multiple channels and external vendors for the implementation of various solutions like IPS-Sendero, Cognos Analytics, Crystal Reports amongst others; Involvements included information gathering, UAT, and post go-live support. Show less • Took the lead in changing the existing, manual reporting methods from being person-dependent into becoming process-oriented, which ultimately had a significant impact on the overall TAT and quality of the final outputs.• Introduced Credit-Card-Specific layer of reports from trend-checks, to business state (Sales vs. Attrition, Sales Teams performance tracking, Trend Analysis…) • Worked with RBG-finance to introduce Boosters for sales to increase productivity, which was possible only after the automation of the manual workings, as it requires a daily update that otherwise was not possible!• ‘Quality Submissions Analysis’ which aimed to provide a detailed analysis on application submissions rejection ratio, broken down to reasons of rejection, this was made possible by working with multiple units from the sales teams, operation, cards disbursing and CPV units.• Conversion ratio of customers (Submitted application vs. product disbursal)• Application life cycles breakup: introduced reports to show the amount of time it takes for a credit card application to go through from submission to the actual card disbursal, highlighting bottlenecks in the process.• Introduced ‘Quality Submissions Analysis’ reports to indicate and track, rejections along with the reasons, this was made possible by introducing a unified format instead of the ‘free-text’ rejection reasons and involved working heavily with multiple units from the sales teams, operation, cards disbursing and CPV units.• Introduced a web-based dashboards (intranet) for Card sales teams, this was the first of its kind and soon followed by the rest of units across the bank! Show less This was my introduction to banking as a whole, my entry to Mashreq and the job I was hired for.Responsibilities revolved around acquiring new business and introducing the various credit card products to existing eligible customers.Was a top seller frequently, but realized quickly that sales is not where my passion lays, as even during the sales role, I had suggested changes in the way the customer-communication was being done, and even how the sales were being tracked, through on a small team scale at that point, which was my entry to the world of Analysis that I got hooked into. Show less

  • Senior Business Analyst, Financial Information Systems

    Apr 2014 - Dec 2021

  • Assistant Manager, Financial Information Systems

    Aug 2010 - Apr 2014

  • Analyst, Reporting - RBG Finance

    Nov 2006 - Aug 2010

  • MIS Officer - Cards Business

    Sept 2005 - Nov 2006

  • Credit Cards Sales Officer

    Feb 2005 - Sept 2005
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  Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

  Dec 2021 - now

  Business Intelligence Manager

  • Business intelligence: Engage with divisions and establish their management information/data requirements and ensure the data availability as needed, and establish workflows to ensure quality control over the released data from its various sources.• Customer service : Deliver intelligence and reports to meet user requirements and ensure follow-up and added value• BI systems: Develop, implement and maintain the business intelligence systems for meeting business stakeholders’ requirements; ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the control structure and processes within BI unit including the security, user access to the data and rules concerning the data retention and confidential data;• Interface with stakeholders from business units to define initiatives and requirements through direct communication• work closely with IT and core to Initiate , design, develop and deliver data marts and MIS report generation for BUs• Defines data elements and establishes policies and procedures related to the collection and accuracy of data, and performs tests on data systems• Operational ownership for the quality of data entities• Provide insight into the changing database storage and utilization requirements for the company and offer suggestions for solutions Show less