Mashreq earns recognition at Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards 2025

The banking company was applauded for launching UAE’s first fully digital account opening for non-resident Egyptians.

Mashreq was named the recipient of the Digital Transformation of the Year - UAE accolade at the Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards 2025.

In a first-of-its-kind initiative, Mashreq has launched a seamless digital account opening journey for Non-Resident Egyptians (NREs). This allows Egyptian nationals living in the UAE to open a Mashreq Egypt bank account in under 10 minutes, directly through the Mashreq Mobile App.

With the UAE being home to a large Egyptian expat population, Mashreq recognised the challenges faced by these customers in accessing banking services back home. These include lengthy processes, physical document submission, and in-branch visits that were often frustrating and time-consuming.

As a solution to this, Mashreq created an end-to-end digital platform that connects Mashreq UAE and Mashreq Egypt through a secure, API-integrated journey.

The new NRE account opening journey is designed to be completely digital, with all steps completed within the Mashreq UAE app; frictionless, with customers providing no physical paperwork or branch visits; instant, with accounts being opened and activated in less than 10 minutes; and smart, with real-time balance viewing and instant remittances to the new account.

What used to take up to 30 days now takes less than 10 minutes, an improvement that offers unmatched convenience and sets a new benchmark in cross-border banking.

The platform has key features that are also firsts in the industry. Amongst this is being the first fully digital NRE account opening journey in the UAE-Egypt corridor, the first real-time cross-bank KYC & authentication, the first instant account activation for NREs, the first real-time balance sync within the UAE banking app, and the first seamless integration between two banks across countries.

This new journey empowers Egyptian customers in the UAE to open and activate a Mashreq Egypt account instantly, remit funds home within seconds, monitor account activity and balance in real-time within the UAE app, enjoy full transparency and status updates without the need to call or visit any branch, and re-attempt or resume applications smoothly if needed.

It’s a one-stop digital solution that connects UAE and Egypt banking in one place.

For the bank, this innovation delivers faster onboarding through automation and digital document processing. It brings operational efficiency by eliminating manual handling and scalability for other NRE corridors and international partners. The company also marked strong compliance with secure, real-time KYC and AML checks, and increased customer satisfaction and growth in the NRE customer base.

Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards recognises the outstanding entities in the retail banking landscape, and serves as a platform to highlight their innovative solutions, retail products, digital banking breakthroughs, and exceptional customer experiences.

The ABF Retail Banking Awards is presented by Asian Banking & Finance Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2026 awards programme and be recognised for your company's cutting-edge products, services, and solutions that made a positive impact on your customers, please contact Julie Anne Nuñez-Difuntorum at [email protected].