Case Study: Al Baraka Islamic Bank digitizes customer experience with a Mendix-built mobile banking app

Al Baraka Bank Digitizes Customer Experience with a Mobile Banking App

Al Baraka Bank South Africa, a 31‑year‑old Islamic bank serving about 60,000 customers and managing R8bn in assets, faced mounting competitive pressure from larger banks with modern web and mobile experiences. With a small in‑house development team, a desktop‑only channel, outdated UI/UX, regulatory backlogs and COVID‑related demands, the bank needed to rapidly modernize its digital customer experience or risk becoming irrelevant.

Al Baraka chose Mendix’s low‑code platform—Mendix Native, Data Hub and secure integrations—then upskilled its team through Mendix Academy and ran two‑weekly agile sprints. After eight sprints they launched a cloud-based, multi‑channel mobile app (App Store approval May 29, 2021) with features like advanced search filters and PDF sharing, eliminated backend silos, accelerated delivery and delivered a beautiful, responsive UX that enables faster reaction to change.

Al Baraka Islamic Bank

Hamzah Asmall

Development and Digitalization Manager