Following the successful launch of ‘meem' by GIB, Gulf International Bank's retail banking service, on the 9th of January in AlKhobar, which was attended by 400 guests, the Head of Retail Banking, Sakhr Almulhem revealed how enthusiastically the story had been picked up online.

"The ‘meem' launch event was streamed live on YouTube and in a little under two hours was attended by over 3,200 viewers watching the launch, reaching a million users on Twitter, representing over 2,500,000 viral (non-paid) impressions."

He added, "The overwhelming response received for ‘meem' is a testament to the power of social media across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and once again underlines the unique relationship between ‘meem' and its co-creators or ‘meemers'."

Website traffic on the day increased by a staggering 751%.

‘meem' is the first customer designed retail banking service in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and offers innovative, non-traditional, Sharia'a compliant banking services and digital communication channels such as social media, web chat and email.
 
‘meem' has deployed and used state of the art technology to offer an innovative and unique experience that is both simple to use and enhances the customers' experience. ‘meem' online banking is the primary customer channel supporting all products and services and can be accessed through ‘meem' mobile application and online.meem.sa. Furthermore, in-store customer experience is enhanced by custom made interfaces such as Self Service Terminals which are available to use by ‘meem' customers for performing all banking and cash related functions with simplicity. ‘meem' also offers Assisted Service Terminals that are designed to facilitate staff-customer interactions with a high level of transparency and simplicity.

Over the past three years ‘meem' was uniquely designed and created by employing the concept of "co-creation" which involved a large group of target customers (meemers) who were engaged using various social media channels.