Emirates NBD will become the first bank in the Middle East and North Africa to deploy OpenAI GPT models using in-country inference infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, the companies said on Monday.
In-country inference means prompts and related data are processed on servers inside the UAE rather than abroad, supporting local rules on data residency, privacy and operational resilience.
The Dubai-based bank plans to use the models for customer engagement on digital channels, risk and compliance analytics, automation of knowledge-intensive workflows, and employee productivity.
It will also connect the models to its internal systems, application programming interfaces and enterprise data, aiming to speed the development of digital services, improve personalization and tighten risk monitoring and financial crime controls.
“Artificial Intelligence is central to the future of banking,” said Miguel Rio-Tinto, Group Chief Digital and Information Officer at Emirates NBD. “Through our collaboration with OpenAI and access to in-country inference in the UAE, we are embedding frontier AI capabilities directly into our operating model.”
Farouk El Hamzawi, Head of Enterprise at OpenAI MENA, said the bank was setting a benchmark for how financial institutions can deploy AI securely at scale.
Emirates NBD said the deployment aligns with the UAE’s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031. No financial terms or go-live date were disclosed.
As of June 30, 2026, the group had total assets of AED 1.3 trillion (about $354 billion), operates in 13 countries and serves more than 25 million active customers. It said 97% of its financial transactions and requests take place outside branches.
