Retail banking across the Middle East has witnessed a period of intense change over the past five years. This has largely been driven by greater global connectivity, itself spurred by increased digital innovation, responding to rising demand for wealth management solutions from a customer base that is increasingly international. Customers want financial services and products that give access to a full range of investment opportunities, as well as an ability to make those investment choices where they want, when they want, and whether on mobile or on desktop.

My colleagues and I have an ambitious agenda for the coming year. We’ll soon be unveiling a new raft of digital services for our customers across the region. We have a strategic goal to “digitize at scale” for the benefit of our wealth and retail businesses, particularly with reference to international connectivity, digitization and wealth management.

For me, delivering bespoke, user-friendly and accessible banking services to our customers is paramount, and something I’ve learned during my career in multiple markets and global banks. As an example of this customer-driven innovation, we’ve invested significantly to streamline the process of changing banks or opening an account when a customer arrives in a new country to reduce the stress, time and the complexity of the process.

HSBC Premier embodies our approach to wealth management for our customers, an approach built around family, mobility and international banking. Launching HSBC International Education in Egypt to help customers with the transition of their children moving abroad to continue their education, is such one example.

These innovations are only part of the story however. We have to always adapt, respond and innovate, building on our strengths. Banking has always been a competitive business, but I believe HSBC is well positioned to respond to new challenges and to invest to keep us at the forefront of the industry.

Our established heritage in the Middle East — where our origins date back to 1889 — our international footprint that covers more than 90% of global financial flows, and our investments to ensure we are a great place to work and a great place to bank; all combine to attract great talent. There are very few truly global financial organizations, and our international reach is what keeps us competitive. Global trends of international connectivity and digitization are clear and have great momentum in this region, which is what makes the road ahead one of exciting opportunity.

This op-ed was written by Dinesh Sharma (Linkedin), regional head of wealth and personal banking at HSBC Bank Middle East. HSBC’s column in Enterprise appears every second Monday.