Instead of technologists shaping what systems advisors and clients use, the digital tools at Middle East-based Mashreq have been built from the users' side of the table, the bank explained recently to this news service.

Mashreq is continuing to build a private bank that has digital technology in its DNA, where clients and relationship managers shape the tools that are used, rather than technology professionals working in the back office.

About two years ago, Mashreq set up a team of about 25 people to make the entire private bank architecture take digital shape from the client’s point of view.

“This was not a digital team [that did it] but a business team. We decided it would be ‘front to back’ rather than ‘back to front’,” Vipul Kapur (pictured below), global head of private banking at Mashreq, told WealthBriefing in an interview. Kapur is based in Dubai.

Vipul Kapur

“We developed the front end [experience] ourselves. Everything is in-house,” Kapur, who has been at Mashreq for more than nine years, said. In all, he has a financial services track record spanning 35 years.

The Mashreq app for wealth management clients is part of the Mashreq Mobile Banking Application. To qualify as a private banking client, they must have a minimum of $2 million in current/savings accounts, deposits or investments.

“You can, as a client, do everything on the app by yourself,” Kapur said, referring to tasks such as buying and selling equities, bonds and mutual funds.

Hybrid
A word that applies is “hybrid.” Kapur said that when a client uses the wealth app, their designated relationship manager will know about that engagement, and when an RM handles a client's business, this is captured by the app. There is a “triangle” between the three, Kapur said.

“All three of them are in sync…we have whole buckets of products that clients can view on this application,” he continued. “The RM has the ability to send an authorisation request via the app…this is straight-through processing.”

“Everything we do is pretty much paperless,” Kapur said.

The group is working with various third parties, such as data providers, to increase more information flows across the wealth app.

Keeping score
Recent financial figures show a bank continuing to progress. Mashreq reported record profit before tax of AED4.8 billion ($1.12 billion) for the first half of 2026, up 18 per cent year-on-year. Operating income rose 10 per cent to AED6.8 billion over the period. Net interest income increased by 7 per cent to AED4.2 billion, supported by 26 per cent growth in loans and advances and a CASA ratio of 63 per cent, which kept funding costs low. Net interest margin strengthened by five basis points to 2.78 per cent in the second quarter, from 2.73 per cent in the first quarter.

Another yardstick of progress is the net promoter score (NPS), a quantitative way of tracking how willing clients are to recommend their service provider to someone else. In a sector where trust and reputation are crucial, Kapur was delighted to state that Mashreq’s private bank has an NPS in the 80s, which he said is significantly higher than the local industry average. (As far as its transactional NPS figure is concerned, the level is 95 out of a possible 100.)

Kapur said the bank engages with clients through in-person meetings and holds seminars and gatherings to inform them about developments and trends. Another element consists of helping to educate younger clients via “internships” and fostering a greater understanding of personal finance, he said.

Kapur warmed to the theme of Mashreq’s global linkages. “We have built our wealth corridors around the globe,” he said, giving examples such as the links between the UAE and the UK, Hong Kong and Dubai, and within Gulf Co-operation Council countries. He also pointed to the recent GIFT City presence (established late last year).

In the case of the corridors involving the UK and Hong Kong, Mashreq has sought to develop an acquisition strategy through a client acquisition team for clients who are planning to move to the UAE or are considering an offshore jurisdiction for their private banking requirements. These acquisition strategic corridors are managed by Navin Chokhani, senior vice president and head of client value management at Mashreq Private Banking.

The way that banks use the notion of a “corridor” to describe links between clusters of clients and financial cities has also been explored by this news service here.

Another important string to Mashreq’s bow is its exclusive discretionary portfolio management tie-up in the region with Goldman Sachs Asset Management, giving clients access to six portfolios depending on their requirements.

Family offices
The family offices sector has expanded rapidly in the Gulf. According to Deloitte, there are more than 8,000 family offices globally. We believe there are possibly over 1,250 family-related entities in the DIFC,” Kapur said. “We go well beyond the investment advisory landscape,” he said, stressing areas such as capital markets, treasury functions, currency management and corporate advisory. “Mashreq is a full-fledged bank,” he said.

Mashreq, which has a memorandum of understanding, is a strategic partner with DIFC. It works closely with DIFC, for example, through its family offices hub, which was set up about three years ago to encourage foundations and other family structures to be created in the jurisdiction.

“Intergenerational wealth transfer is a major issue. Talk of generational change took Kapur back to the importance of Mashreq’s wealth app model. “They [the younger generation] want information quickly and they want someone to backstop them when they need it. We are attracting a lot of younger generation clients,” Kapur added.

To see more about WealthBriefing’s coverage of the evolving wealth management market of the Gulf region, click here.