Leumi, CIBC and NAB Form Strategic Alliance for Fintech Innovation

Canada's CIBC (NYSE: CM) announced today that it has formed a strategic partnership with National Australia Bank (NAB) and Israel's Bank Leumi focused on delivering new and innovative ways to enhance client experiences. The alliance was officially signed this week in Tel Aviv, a world leader in high-tech startups and a global tech hub.

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The new partnership enables the banks to share aspects of their proprietary innovation strategies to enhance client experiences. They will share information regarding innovation insights and learnings, co-develop products and services to support and grow their respective client bases, as well as facilitate the exchange of employee talent in the innovation space.

"We are excited to partner with NAB and Bank Leumi, two highly respected banks that share our commitment to client-focused innovation," says Stephen Forbes, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, CIBC. "We have created a culture of collaboration among teams to drive innovation inside our bank, and formed important external partnerships with innovation hubs and fintechs to help us build the bank of the future for our clients. This alliance further strengthens our leadership position in innovation, and broadens our access to global insights and talent in this fast-moving space."

Blockchain in focus

The banks also revealed today that in the two months leading up to today's announcement, CIBC and NAB worked together to test Ripple blockchain technology, moving money from Canada to Australia and vice versa, becoming part of a small group of banks globally to have successfully completed a cross-border blockchain transfer.

"We're excited to be working with CIBC and have already partnered with them in using Ripple's blockchain technology to complete international Payments transfers between our banks as a proof of concept," says Jonathan Davey, Executive General Manager, NAB Labs. "Like NAB, CIBC is a customer-focused bank with a strong emphasis on the use of innovation to deliver improved customer services; and like NAB, CIBC recognizes the power of partnerships to help drive transformation and true differentiation for our customers."

"It's common knowledge that Israel is the 'Start-Up Nation' and a hotbed of innovation. Bank Leumi is a key player in both the local and global innovation arena and I am strongly convinced that this alliance will enable us to mutually share innovation strategies and to enhance our respective customer experience," says Dan Yerushalmi, Bank Leumi First Executive Vice President, Group CTIO and COO. "We find this open dialogue and knowledge sharing to be of great value and see the alliance as the beginning of a wider collaboration with NAB and CIBC in future programs."