Mashreq Al Islami’s success as the world’s best Islamic digital bank rests not just on digitising products but on building a genuinely end-to-end Islamic banking ecosystem that spans retail, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), wealth and private banking. In a Shariah banking environment where customer expectations are evolving rapidly, Mashreq Al Islami – the Islamic window of the UAE’s largest privately owned bank – has pushed aggressively towards fully digital, customer-initiated banking journeys with minimal human intervention.
“At Mashreq, we see digital ecosystems as central to scaling Islamic banking profitably, enabling us to embed financial services into our customers’ daily lives while optimising cost and reach,” says Ibrahim Al Mheiri, CEO of Mashreq Al Islami and head of Islamic banking at Mashreq. “We are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), automation and embedded finance to deliver highly personalised, real-time engagement, simplifying complex products and making ethical finance more accessible.”
At the centre of this strategy is Mashreq NEO, the bank’s fast-growing, fully digital banking platform. Through NEO, Mashreq has created an end-to-end digital operating model in which customer acquisition, onboarding, servicing, transactions and product fulfilment can be completed without manual intervention.
Our ambition is to lead a new era of Islamic banking, one that is digital-first, insight-driven, and deeply aligned with both customer aspirations and the core principles of Shariah
Ibrahim Al Mheiri
The bank has seen a significant improvement in key metrics in tandem with its digital investments. Mashreq Al Islami’s assets expanded by 135% between 2020 and 2025, while deposits reached AED29 billion by end-2025. More than 98.5% of Islamic retail transactions are now conducted digitally, while over 80% of Islamic banking customers actively use digital channels.
A major differentiator is the breadth of Mashreq Al Islami’s digital Islamic proposition. It offers a comprehensive Shariah-compliant product suite across mass-market, affluent, private banking and business segments, including accounts, home finance, personal finance, cards, takaful and investment products.
Frictionless engagement
In retail banking, Mashreq Al Islami has focused on frictionless onboarding and customer engagement. Customers can digitally open accounts, apply for cards, access personal finance, arrange mortgage pre-approvals and purchase insurance products. New-to-bank customers can now open an account in minutes using minimal documentation, while AI-powered features such as Money Insights analyse transaction behaviour and provide personalised recommendations.
The bank has also expanded its digital wealth management capabilities, reflecting the increasingly sophisticated requirements of regional customers. Clients can onboard digitally into investment products, access local and international markets, open trading accounts, invest in thematic portfolios and manage wealth solutions online. The integration of banking, investment and advisory capabilities into a single digital ecosystem has been particularly important in enhancing its wealth offering. Mashreq’s platform gives clients access to solutions including sukuk, mutual funds, structured products, investment lending and portfolio analytics, while digital tools provide greater transparency around holdings, performance and financing positions.
Mashreq Al Islami reports strong outcomes following its investments in product depth and digital wealth capabilities, including a 65% increase in new private banking client onboarding, a 95% improvement in relationship manager productivity and a 54% increase in wealth management volumes.
Beyond traditional SME banking
The SME proposition has also become a core component of Mashreq Al Islami’s digital banking strategy. Through Mashreq NEO BIZ, the bank provides digital onboarding capabilities alongside a wider suite of Islamic business banking solutions, including trade finance, merchant finance and working-capital products.
Its SME strategy is built around reducing traditional banking friction through paperless onboarding, embedded finance partnerships and more data-driven approaches to financing. By integrating banking services with wider business ecosystems and supporting entrepreneurs through digital-first solutions, Mashreq Al Islami is seeking to expand beyond traditional SME banking relationships.
The bank has continued to invest in the underlying technology required to support its transformation into a digital-first operator. Initiatives include face-recognition onboarding, digital initial public offering (IPO) capabilities, AI-enabled relationship manager tools, application programming interface (API) infrastructure, automated workflows and customer-engagement solutions designed to increase straight-through processing, reduce turnaround times and create more personalised digital experiences.
Notably, Mashreq Al Islami’s digital ambitions have also expanded beyond the UAE. During the review period, it launched what it describes as Pakistan’s first fully digital Islamic bank, targeting a population of more than 260 million and a market where the bank sees significant potential for financial inclusion. The launch reflects Mashreq’s ambition to apply its digital Islamic banking model to markets where large unbanked populations, younger digital-first customers and demand for Shariah-compliant financial services create a substantial growth opportunity.
For Mashreq, digitalisation is ultimately about changing the economics and accessibility of Islamic finance. “Our ambition is to lead a new era of Islamic banking, one that is digital-first, insight-driven, and deeply aligned with both customer aspirations and the core principles of Shariah,” says Al Mheiri.
That combination of scale, profitability, product breadth and technical sophistication helped differentiate Mashreq Al Islami in a competitive global field. Few Islamic banks have built such an extensive digital proposition across retail, SME and wealth management, demonstrating the ability to combine customer growth, operational efficiency and innovation within one integrated platform.
