Bahrain, Manama - 5th March, 2013 - EMC Corporation announced today that Bahraini retail and commercial banking institution BMI Bank has selected EMC® technologies, including EMC VNX®  unified storage with the EMC FAST™ Suite, EMC Data Domain® deduplication back-up system and EMC SourceOne™ Email Management for Microsoft Exchange to transform its IT infrastructure. BMI Bank expects to improve storage performance, simplify system management and reduce OPEX costs with its new EMC infrastructure. The agreement was signed by the Bank's General Manager Support Services Eyad Sater and Habib Mahakian EMC Regional General Manager Gulf and Pakistan in the presence of senior officials from both parties at the Bank's headquarters at the Bahrain World Trade Center.

Signing the agreement Eyad Sater General Manager Support Services of BMI Bank said:  

"As a progressive and dynamic local retail Bank, we believe it is imperative to constantly review our IT strategy and Bank wide service levels to enable us to better serve our customers. As part of this process, we are pleased to leverage technologies from a company like EMC. We expect that our new EMC technologies will help us achieve better levels of performance, data protection and compliance, as well as simplify the management of our infrastructure."

EMC Quote:

Wael Mustafa, Sales District Manager, EMC 

"We're pleased to deliver EMC solutions to BMI Bank that offer leading performance, simplicity and efficiency, optimized for virtual applications. With EMC VNX unified storage, Data Domain and SourceOne we hope to enable BMI Bank to achieve increased system performance, cost-savings and the flexibility to support anticipated growth."

About BMI Bank B.S.C. (c)
Bahraini retail and commercial banking institution, BMI Bank is a retail bank, registered in Bahrain and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain. The Bank offers its customers a complete range of innovative and unique financial products and services through its extended network of strategically located branches and ATMs. The Bank's multi-award winning eChannels including its corporate website www.bmibank.com.bh have been honored with various prestigious awards over the past few years helping in consolidating both its position as well as perception within the country as a key retail Bank. The Bank posted a profit of USD 1.3 million for the year ended 31st December 2012, marking its sixth straight quarter of profit as well as its full-year return to profitability after a period of five years. The Bank maintains an excellent Capital Adequacy Ratio of over 18% with very strong liquidity as reported during the year ended 2012.

 BMI Bank operates an international branch in Qatar, owns and operates the Diners Club cards franchise in Bahrain, has a 21.33% shareholding in Gulf African Bank - Kenya, and has an equal stake in an Offshore Bank in the Seychelles (a joint venture with Nouvobanq). BMI Bank's shareholders include some of the strongest and most respected financial institutions across the GCC, including BankMuscat (SAOG) the flagship financial institution in the Sultanate of Oman.  With assets worth over USD 18 billion, BankMuscat (SAOG) is the leading financial services provider in Oman with a strong presence in Corporate Banking, Retail Banking, Investment Banking, Treasury, Private Banking and Asset Management. BankMuscat has the largest network of 134 branches, 409 ATM, 141 CDM's and 4500 POS terminals in Oman.

BMI Bank currently offers its local customers a range of retail products and services including savings and current accounts, a USD 1.8 million prize-winning Ayadi savings account, Visa gold and classic credit cards,  a Diners Club credit card and a La Carte, a co-branded Visa credit card in partnership with Geant Hypermarket Bahrain. A newly introduced Platinum credit card offers customers the advantage of earning miles on everyday purchases that can be directly redeemed towards Gulf Air's Falconflyer program (FFPas well as a complimentary Falconflyer Silver membership. The Bank also offers customers fixed deposits, the Salaf range of personal, auto and mortgage loans and a new phone banking service that enables its customers to carry out most of their regular banking transactions in a safe and secure environment using their phones. The Bank has a strategic and exclusive service agreement with CrediMax to utilize their Point of Sales (POS) machines as well as payment gateways to accept and authorize the Bank's Diners Club cards thereby giving the brand stronger acceptance across the country. In addition to its secure credit card online repayment channel that enables customers of the Bank to pay their credit card bill online using any benefit enabled debit card, customers can also deposit real-time cash into their various accounts with the Bank using special cash deposit ATMs located at the self-service area within the Bank's branches without the need to be committed to the Bank's working hours.

In line with its ongoing commitment towards building a stronger CSR program and giving back to the community, BMI Bank has donated over BD 80,000 in 2012 towards various local charities including annual commitments to the Al Sanabel Orphans Care Center, Royal Charity Organization, American Mission Hospital's (AMH) Community Outreach Program, the Island Classic Charity Golf Tournament and Think Pink Bahrain, Bahrain Red Crescent Society, Bahrain Disabled Sports Federation, Al Noor Charity Welfare and the Children & Mother's Welfare Society amongst others.

In addition to Retail Banking BMI Bank also offers Wholesale, SME, Private and Islamic Banking as well as Financial Institutions Group (FIG) and Treasury services.

About EMC
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset - information - in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

EMC is a registered trademark of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

For further information, please contact:
Gordon Andrade; Head, Corporate Communications
BMI Bank - Bahrain
E-mail: gordon.andrade@bmibank.com
Cell: +97339782225 

© Press Release 2013