Reimagining digital banking to deliver resilience and growth across three markets
Amid Lebanon’s economic crisis, SGBL turned challenge into opportunity by proving that digital equals resilience. Partnering with Backbase, the bank launched a robust omnichannel platform that kept services reliable when customers needed them most.
300 000+
In an AI-driven world, legacy systems don’t just slow you down — they shut you out of real growth. To compete, banks need a modular foundation built for speed, intelligence, and scale.
customers
3 countries
In an AI-driven world, legacy systems don’t just slow you down — they shut you out of real growth. To compete, banks need a modular foundation built for speed, intelligence, and scale.
across the Middle East
Beirut, Lebanon
In an AI-driven world, legacy systems don’t just slow you down — they shut you out of real growth. To compete, banks need a modular foundation built for speed, intelligence, and scale.
is the headquarters
Objectives
SGBL’s ambition was to shift from a product-centric to a customer-centric bank. Customer expectations were evolving, and the legacy app was too limited. At the same time, the crisis forced rapid cost-cutting, shrinking branches from 70 to 20 and staff from 2,000 to 700.
Solution
SGBL turned to Backbase in 2017 with a clear objective: to create a seamless digital banking journey across channels while preparing for an ambitious core banking migration. At the same time, SGBL adopted the scrum agile methodology for the first time, aligning ways of working with the flexibility of the new platform. This cultural shift became as important as the technology itself, allowing teams to move faster and make real-time decisions.
Results
The result was a complete digital experience, including self-service onboarding, card controls, instant transfers, biometric login, cardless ATM withdrawals, and geo-localization features. Behind the scenes, a modular, API-driven architecture allowed SGBL to integrate seamlessly with its legacy systems while preparing for the new core.
Backbase offers a modular, API-first digital banking layer that is flexible and composable, allowing us to expose all our existing data. This makes it the ideal partner to build a robust web and mobile experience without being held back by either the legacy or the new core banking system.
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Discover how SGBL built one scalable digital banking experience that serves multiple markets and core systems.