Emirates NBD rolls out e-commerce marketplace

Emirates NBD has launched online shopping store, SkyShopper, enabling its credit and debit card customers to buy the likes of flights, hotels, electronics, clothes and groceries.

Suvo Sarkar, senior executive vice president, and group head – retail banking and wealth management, Emirates NBD, insists that the Dubai-based bank is “not in the online shopping space as a participant in the marketplace, but we are just an aggregator for our customers. The likes of souq.com, amazon.com, and noon.com are the big giants, and they are the ones who will drive online shopping. This is not a revenue line for us to compete with them. We are complementing what they are doing and we will offer our customers a more convenient shopping experience.”

The total value of e-commerce in the UAE is likely to hit $20 billion by 2020, he adds. “Hence, there is enough space for everyone to grow. As our customer base grows over the years, we hope more of them will shop through our website. The e-commerce spend by our customers is growing 35% every year and one-third of that is being spent across various online platforms. So it is important for us to address this market.”

Emirates NBD has thus far inked 15 partnerships, including Cleartrip and Musafir, Namshi, Axiom, Jumbo, Platinumlist and Trolley.ae. Customers can also shop on international online stores with delivery to the UAE routed through MyUS.com and at My Smart Price (MSP) India, offering delivery to all parts of India.