Digital banking requires balance between innovation, compliance, says expert Haider

By Syed Iftikhar Hussain Naqvi

RAWALPINDI, Mar 10 (APP): As digital banking continues to transform financial services across the Gulf region, Pakistani professionals are playing increasingly important roles in designing and delivering the technology that powers modern banking platforms.

In an interview with APP, senior business analyst and digital banking specialist Syed Hassan Haider, currently based in Riyadh, shared insights into how his work bridges the gap between business strategy and technological execution in an evolving financial ecosystem.

Haider, who is serving at Vision Bank in Saudi Arabia, said digital banking is often judged by customers through their mobile screens — whether a payment is processed successfully, a card is issued smoothly, or a new account can be opened within minutes.

“However, what customers rarely see is the complex work behind the scenes that converts a business idea into software capable of operating within regulatory frameworks, risk controls and real customer behaviour,” he said.

According to him, his role largely involves translating business needs into technical requirements that development teams can build and implement effectively.

“In practical terms, I spend much of my time working with different departments — operations, compliance, lending and SME stakeholders — to understand their requirements and convert them into user stories, development backlogs and product roadmaps,” he explained.

Haider said digital banking projects often required balancing innovation with compliance and operational safety. “Banks must innovate quickly to meet customer expectations, but every feature must pass through strict controls to ensure security, reliability and regulatory compliance,” he added.

He said a key element of his approach was ensuring clarity before development began. “If a requirement cannot be explained simply and tested clearly, it is not ready to build,” he remarked, emphasising the importance of structured discussions with developers and quality assurance teams to remove ambiguities.

Haider noted that much of his work focused on payments and card systems, where technical challenges often emerged in complex operational scenarios. “A payment that works in one situation can fail in another because of limits, reversals, reconciliation rules, or timing differences,” he said, adding that careful planning and testing were essential to prevent system failures.

He said he had also been closely involved in integration testing, regression testing and user acceptance testing, working alongside quality assurance teams to ensure that system improvements did not unintentionally introduce new issues.

Haider further said he participated in quarterly planning and backlog management processes using project management tools such as JIRA, where prioritisation decisions could influence whether a product release appeared stable or rushed.

Reflecting on his professional journey, he said his current role at Vision Bank began in October 2024 after serving at Riyad Bank from January 2022 to September 2024. Before that, he spent over a decade at Arab National Bank, starting in December 2011.

Over the years, he said, he had worked in both waterfall and agile delivery environments, gaining experience in managing projects involving multiple stakeholders, vendors and technical teams. “That experience helps when several projects run simultaneously and when success depends on coordination rather than individual effort,” he added.

Haider described his role as a connector between teams that often operated at different speeds and perspectives. “Business units usually focus on outcomes and urgency, engineers focus on system dependencies, while compliance teams emphasise regulatory requirements,” he said. “My job is to protect the intent of the business while respecting what the system can safely do.”

He said the real value of digital banking expertise lay in ensuring that innovative features not only launched successfully but also remained reliable and sustainable for customers over time. “In digital banking, the bridge between business and technology is critical,” he said, adding that it was often the difference between a feature that merely launched and one that truly lasted.