MUSCAT — Oman’s banking sector is shifting from virtual adoption to an “intelligence-first” section, the place synthetic intelligence, open banking and cybersecurity will outline the following level of economic services and products, the Governor of the Central Financial institution of Oman stated.
Talking on the New Age Banking Summit Oman, he stated virtual transactions accounted for approximately 89 according to cent of general transaction volumes within the Sultanate via the tip of 2025, whilst fast cost programs procedure round 1.1 million transactions day-to-day.
“These are not just operational achievements,” he stated.
“They’re indicators that agree with has been earned, that the rules are resilient, and that the infrastructure we now have constructed is in a position to supporting the ambitions of the following financial technology.”
The governor said Oman was no longer merely pursuing digital-first banking, after years of digitising payments, onboarding and customer services.
“We are entering the era of intelligence-first banking,” he said, adding that artificial intelligence is being embedded into payments, supervision, compliance, risk management and financial decision-making. He said the shift raises a central question for regulators and financial institutions: how to ensure trust, ethics and human judgment remain at the core of transformation as algorithms increasingly shape economic behaviour and access to opportunity.“Intelligence without wisdom is not progress. It is risk wearing the mask of innovation,” he said.
The governor framed open banking as a strategic and institutional shift, not just a technology upgrade. For decades, he said, institutions controlled access to financial data and services.
Today, customers increasingly expect ownership, portability, transparency and freedom over their financial lives.He said the institutions that will lead the next era of finance will be those that reinvent themselves before disruption forces them to do so. The CBO governor also warned that innovation must be anchored in governance.“Innovation without governance creates fragility, but innovation anchored in trust creates something far more valuable — sustainable transformation,” he said.
He added that the history of financial crises showed the danger of innovation moving faster than the wisdom required to govern it. Cybersecurity, he said, has become a core part of financial and national resilience as banking systems become more intelligent and interconnected.“Cybersecurity is no longer a technical function. It is financial security.
It is economic security. And in an era of geopolitical volatility, it is national security,” he said.
He connected the banking sector’s transformation to Oman’s eleventh 5-Yr Building Plan, describing it as greater than an financial roadmap and as a remark of strategic ambition in a impulsively converting global. The chairman stated Oman was once development a monetary ecosystem this is digitally complex, globally hooked up, innovation-driven and nationally sovereign.“The future of banking will not be determined by technology. Technology is just the instrument,” he stated. “The future of banking will be determined by leadership, strategic foresight and our collective willingness to shape innovation in a manner that advances prosperity while never sacrificing trust.”Underneath the management of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, he stated, Oman is shifting against that long term with objective and self assurance.“We are not here just to observe the new age of banking. We are here to shape it,” he stated.
