- Magnati now a fully operational subsidiary of FAB, completing carve out from UAE’s largest bank
- Strategic milestone creates a focused and agile entity with regional growth ambitions, underpinned by a differentiated proposition and an intelligent payments platform
- Enhanced capabilities to partner with FinTechs empowering customers to excel in the digital economy
- Ramana Kumar named Magnati’s CEO
Abu Dhabi, UAE: 4 April 2021: First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) today completed the carve out of its existing payments business into a fully owned and operational subsidiary. The new brand name, Magnati, is built around energy, potential and partnerships, and underscores its mission to transform payments into possibilities.
As a rapidly growing and industry leading payments business operating in a buoyant market, Magnati will be able to unlock new growth opportunities through a focused and agile model, underpinned by an intelligent payments platform that creates value for customer, government, merchant and institutional clients.
This unique platform will enable clients to grow their core businesses by monetising data and using next generation technologies such as APIs, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to deliver improved experiences and increased efficiency. The Magnati platform will also provide enhanced capabilities to partner with FinTechs on product and service innovation.
Magnati brings together four key business lines: a fast-growing acquiring business, strong and exclusive government solutions, and market leading consumer payments coupled with captive issuer processing business. Through value-added services built around data and platform capabilities, Magnati’s customer-led value proposition is a strong differentiator, empowering customers to excel in the digital economy.
Magnati is set up on a strong base of market leadership in government payments, merchant acquiring, prepaid cards and growing e-commerce segment. The payments company is currently positioned amongst the top two players in the UAE across direct acquiring, prepaid issuing and issuer processing. In 2020, the business served over 30,000 merchants and to date issued more than 2 million prepaid cards and processed approximately USD 18 Billion in transaction value. Leading market share and increased volume growth even during the pandemic are testaments to Magnati’s client relationships and differentiated customer value proposition.
Hana Al Rostamani, Group Chief Executive Officer of FAB, said: “The establishment of Magnati as a growing, agile and focused payments business comes at a time when the region’s transition to digital payments is accelerating. By creating a standalone entity with its own strategy, and a highly experienced management team, Magnati will be able to leverage its technology, data and customer relationships, further unlocking value for the company, FAB and its shareholders. This is not only a key strategic milestone for FAB, it is also a watershed for the rapidly expanding payments industry.”
Magnati’s founding team brings an unmatched depth of payment, technology and data experience. It will be led by Ramana Kumar, previously Group Head of Payments and Digital Banking at FAB, as the new CEO of Magnati supported by the leadership team across business, operations and technology.
Ramana Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of Magnati, said: “Magnati is now plugged in, charged up and ready to deliver on our mission to transform payments into possibilities. As a standalone business, we will be able to drive our strategy forward and pursue our growth ambitions, with a powerful brand name reflecting our emphasis on partnership, value creation and orientation towards the future. With FAB’s support, we are well positioned to deliver further benefits for our customer, government, merchant and institutional clients, helping them harness the opportunities of the digital economy, and shape the future of payments in the region.”
Magnati completes the carve out of FAB’s payments business and its transition from a transactional to a data-driven and platform business. All existing merchants and customers will transition to Magnati and the bank’s familiar point of sale devices and other customer facing devices will be rebranded over the coming days.
Magnati will operate as a fully owned FAB subsidiary, strengthening the Group’s leadership position in the rapidly expanding payments sector and accelerating its digital transformation agenda.
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