An agreement has been signed by Emirates NBD’s Private Banking and AON to distribute the bank’s Kanzi service.

It follows the bank’s launch of Kanzi Solutions at a press conference last week.

The new service marks a new era in company-employee relations by offering provident schemes, employee share option plans and deferred compensation schemes, designed to give regional companies a competitive advantage when hiring and retaining talent.

The agreement was signed between Emirates NBD general manager- consumer banking and wealth management Jamal bin Ghalaita, and Aon Middle East CEO Massoud Shaheem.

Bin Ghalaita said, “We are confident that our agreement with AON will help us in reaching an extensive network of institutional clients who would find the ENBD Kanzi offering very attractive. Emirates NBD are committed to enhancing employee benefits in the region and we feel that AON is the ideal partner and distribution channel, given their experience, knowledge, network and commitment to the region over the past 25 years.

“The GCC is integrating into the global economy at an astounding rate leading to competition in entirely new arenas. Attracting and retaining staff is becoming key to a companies success.

“As domestic job markets liberalise, it is not just hard to acquire the people that make a business grow. It is harder to maintain the people you have. Most enterprises in the GCC do not, on the whole, have any form of employee remuneration beyond the agreed compensation package and the eligible end-of-service benefits based not on performance, but on how long someone has served.”

“We realised that many of our corporate clients were having major difficulties attracting talent and retaining talent,” says private banking director Julie Azharian,. “When we dug a bit deeper, we discovered that this was purely because there was not enough to attract them. People were asking about pensions, retirement, ESOPs, deferred payment and bonus schemes – but governments and companies in this region do not offer them necessarily to all employees.

“We have created Kanzi out of demand to fill this void and help employers acquire, retain and manage their talent, whilst maintaining control over the process for mutual benefit.”

Emirates NBD Kanzi can be broken down to three main elements: The Provident Scheme, Employee Share Option Plans (ESOPs) and Deferred Compensation schemes.  Each scheme will provide employees with long-term savings plans ahead of their retirement.

Kanzi, although a new service for Emirates NBD, has been structured with the appointment of internationally experienced specialist alliance partners, who offer extensive knowledge and experience in this field. – TradeArabia News Service