Marie d'Halluin
Ruya
Head of Strategy & Product
Marie d’Halluin is Head of Strategy & Products at Ruya Community Islamic Bank, a bank recognized at the Qorus Reinvention Awards MEA 2025. Raheel Vakeel met her during the ceremony and took the opportunity to ask a few questions about the bank’s accomplishments and the challenges facing this UAE challenger bank that’s been generating a lot of buzz.
Can you introduce yourself and give us a brief overview of ruya?
My name is Marie d’Halluin, and I serve as the Head of Strategy & Products at Ruya Community Islamic Bank, the UAE’s first fully digital, community-centric Islamic bank. My background spans strategy, digital transformation, and product innovation across both traditional and challenger banks, and I’ve always been driven by the belief that finance should serve people with clarity, fairness, and purpose.
ruya was founded on that same philosophy. We built the bank around four values—prosperity, integrity, partnership, and community—ensuring that every product and decision is grounded in ethical principles while designed for modern digital lifestyles. ruya goes beyond traditional banking—it introduces a social model that merges Shari’ah-compliant products with community engagement, transparent pricing, and seamless digital experiences. Our mission is simple: to make ethical banking accessible, intuitive, and human.
Digital technologies are driving growth and innovation in Islamic finance
ruya recently received a trophy at the Qorus Reinvention Awards MEA 2025. What does this award mean to you and your innovation team?
It was an honor to receive this innovation award here in Dubai at the Qorus event. But for us, it is more than a trophy—it is a validation of a belief.
When we started exploring Bitcoin for an Islamic bank, we weren’t following a trend. We were asking a simple but powerful question: can our customers access the future of finance in a way that is truly Shari’ah-compliant, transparent, and responsible?
Together with our Shari’ah Board, our regulators, and our technology partners, we co-designed a Bitcoin investment journey that puts ethics, education, and risk awareness at the center—with clear structures, real transparency, and no compromise on our values.
This award tells us something important: Islamic finance does not need to choose between innovation and principles. It can be both cutting-edge and deeply ethical.
For our team, this recognition also affirms the culture we’ve built internally—one where every Ruyan feels ownership, where innovation is guided by values, and where teams come together to solve real customer problems. The award is not just recognition of a project; it is recognition of a philosophy: that purpose-driven innovation is not only possible—it is powerful.
What are the main challenges in growing and managing Shari’ah-compliant products and services as a digital bank?
The challenge is to translate rich, faith-based financial principles into intuitive digital products without compromising authenticity. Islamic finance is built on intent, fairness, and transparency—and those elements must be embedded at every stage, from product design to UX copy to accounting flows.
As a digital bank, our task is to make these principles easy to experience. That means co-creating with Shari’ah advisors from day one, building governance frameworks that make compliance transparent, and designing journeys where users understand pricing, profit models, and structures intuitively—while avoiding the temptation to oversimplify or “mask” the underlying structure.
Shari’ah compliance is not a limitation; it is a compass. And when used correctly, it pushes us toward more responsible, more human innovation.
Danamon strengthens Sharia banking with digital push and community outreach
Launching a digital bank in an already competitive market is not easy. How are you perceived by the public and by traditional banks? And what is your strategy to break through?
We are perceived as a credible challenger—modern yet respectful of tradition, digital yet deeply human. Customers appreciate that we are transparent, community-driven, and responsive. Traditional banks see us as a catalyst accelerating innovation and raising expectations around fairness and customer-centricity.
Our breakthrough strategy rests on three pillars:
• Human-first digital banking—intuitive journeys, accessible language, transparent pricing
• Community as a differentiator—outreach programs, education, open-door centers, and financial empowerment initiatives
• Purpose-led innovation—launching Shari’ah-compliant products that are modern, responsible, and built around real needs.
We don’t compete by shouting louder; we compete by serving better.
In a world dominated by digital channels, how can banks humanize the customer experience?
Humanizing digital banking means designing around emotions, not just transactions. It means anticipating needs, simplifying choices, and communicating clearly and respectfully.
At ruya, we do this by embedding empathy into every customer journey, using data responsibly to personalize—not pressure—customers, training support teams to focus on listening rather than scripting, and combining digital ease with community presence.
Technology brings efficiency; human insight brings trust. The two must coexist.
Everyone is focused on AI these days. Could you share how ruya is using AI and highlight some of the innovative projects you’ve launched?
We use AI with a clear principle: augment trust, security, and agility. Our AI initiatives focus on simplifying onboarding, enhancing customer support, improving risk assessments, and designing personalized but ethical product recommendations.
These innovations include AI-supported credit insights built on responsible decisioning, intelligent customer-support routing for faster, more human interactions, and behavior-based insights that help customers improve financial habits.
One meaningful AI collaboration we have established has been with IGNYTE, where we took part in the innovation challenge we called “Cred-ai-bility”—a concept designed to rethink how creditworthiness can be assessed with responsibility, inclusivity, and transparency.
With IGNYTE, we explored new ways to use data to responsibly identify potential, especially for young professionals, freelancers, and segments often underserved by traditional frameworks. The goal was not more complexity—but more dignity in financial access.
Through this collaboration, we are exploring how AI can enable fairer credit insights without biased assumptions, predictive models that empower rather than exclude, and clearer explanations for decisions, so customers understand “why”—not just receive a “yes” or “no”.
For us, AI is not a black box or a gimmick. It is a tool to democratize financial access, to reward responsible behavior, and to open doors for communities who often feel overlooked. We use it to enhance clarity, fairness, and accessibility across all interactions.
What is your vision for banking in 2030?
By 2030, banking will be values-driven, invisible, and deeply embedded in everyday life. Customers will expect instant services, ethical models, hyper-personalization, and total transparency. Islamic banking, in particular, will become a global benchmark for ethical finance.
I envision a world where customers no longer choose between values and convenience—because the best banks will deliver both seamlessly. At ruya, we are already building toward that future: one where ethics guide innovation, technology amplifies empathy, and banking becomes a genuine force for community prosperity.
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