Fintech - The State of the MENA

foreign [Music] what a fantastic time to be here thank you so much for being here as well early in the morning and before I start it's important to first of all give a big round of applause once again to the organizers who made this fantastic setup happened and before I continue I mean it's been a fantastic Journey for all of us while we have been when the mean of fintech Association was launched now I would actually like to thank on this big stage this amazing setup 80 GMT for being an absolute support it's a very beginning chairman William Richard and the entire adgm team who has made this Mina fintech Association a great big success not just for the region but globally so thank you a big round of applause for them as well so today I would only be talking about three things as you can see and uh these three things are going to be setting the stage on how we'll be moving ahead for the next 12 months or the next five years and that's how we foresee this today we have around 700 plus fintechs in the region 75 of them are based here that shows you that we are actually here in a global economic Powerhouse and yes when we say that this is a global economic Powerhouse it is and all you can all of you can see what's happening in the region and how UAE Abu Dhabi is leading the race now the important thing to understand over here while you're moving towards the progressive economies and how we are basically growing some of the important things that we have to understand is how the customer has evolved today the customer has changed rapidly we were talking about the alpha economy right before right and the alpha generation the customers today as we all know are expecting more seamless and frictionless while you add experiences that are able to not just basically add value but significantly be able to change our lives as well if you look if you talk about what has been happening in the payment space we're expecting 69 of the transactions to be non-cash by 2023 but that is just a small indicator now that also tells you the customer as I mentioned before is demanding new experiences as a customer is demanding new experiences that means more data sharing is going to happen more open data Frameworks are going to be there now in the next 12 months how we foresee this landscape becoming a lot more robust is more regulations and more Frameworks coming into play and how we all foresee this is Forex is that you will see more governance coming into play when it comes to open data Frameworks for AML for kyc and most importantly the API standard there's going to be more standardization that's going to be there along with that we will have more transparency in the guidelines on how you can actually embed Financial products into non-financial products now as that's exactly what I just mentioned before right that how the customers are demanding more and more uh you know evolved experiences now as we are going to be demanding more evolved experiences that also means there's going to be significant amount of across industry data sharing that's where you're going towards open finance as well now when we're going towards cross industry data sharing another important thing to keep an eye on in the region as well is going to be Frameworks coming into play for secure data sharing common liability Networks that is going to be a major thing so as a business and all of us we need to keep a very strong eye on that so why is this important the reason why this is important is a regenerative economy as you can see what I've mentioned over here we all know this transparency and open data framework is going to help us transition into this economy that we're looking at now this again the first segment is going to be a very important block that's coming into play today and as you can see some of the Regulators have already established end-to-end guidelines for open data Frameworks end to end and that is going to be a very important segment again as we are moving forward towards a regenerative economy as you would have seen the theme across the globe and how this region is leading it is two words a net zero economy we all talk about that today right we have the region setting standards and goals from 2030 to 2060. how can we achieve that this is an important theme not just for businesses to embed but it's an important theme for the global economy to embed to be able to transition towards it now I'll just take a step back on what has happened so the global economy or the overall economy is like what it's like a human organism we built we grow the cells grow right and it's productive that's how we have been going towards the growth but now we're also heading towards more toxins coming into our body right so that's where our business activities our economic engines have started becoming destructive so why can we not embed impact and make it happen in a way that instead of just being you know doing business as usual we also are doing business as usual and creating a solid impact good good impact basically so a regenerative economy is a very essential and a very key theme that is going to be a part of all of our business activities and why Financial Services is going to play a key role let me tell you that and fintech and specific globally we have around 50 billion tons of carbon emissions being deployed yeah and if you look into it carbon emissions is a product of consumption consumption is a product of spending and spending cannot happen with our financial services so if you look into it it's a very important segment that the businesses will be focusing on so a regenerative economy is extremely key it's extremely essential now in order for us to glue this together it is very important that we bring in the concept of enabling more and more talent to make this happen so as we have seen a change from the university.com we have seen the emergence of tech companies coming in dirt of talent more talent coming in now a new breed of talent will be required to enable this regenerative economy where the roles and responsibility of all as businesses and all the fintechs and all the tech companies out there to have more I would say developed talent and more nurtured Talent within their own organizations and developing it one of the small examples that I would actually like to give over here is the next gen UAE initiative that has been launched by UAE the next gen Talent now the next gen Talent tells you that why UAE is a great place for you why you as a business and you as a tech company need to be positioned over here not just that we are a gateway to the region but today organically organically we're able to bring in multiple talent coming in and placing themselves over here we have large organizations bringing in their complete resource base over here right and same goes for the fintech space as well we have today developers we're basically moving in over here we have more technical talent coming in over here and why are they coming in over here why are they basing themselves in the UAE not just that be the regional access because also be looking at a few more things one is that the access to Visa is extremely seamless the lifestyle extremely seamless as well but while you set up over here the organizations need to have a few important things that need to focus on and we see that happening more and more where fintechs and tech companies have developed in-house fintech programs that need to be focusing on nurturing Talent from point one to point to point number 10 which means giving them more exposure that is extremely important that's how we see that now if you look into what I just mentioned over here from the angle of open data Frameworks being a core enabler this is an extremely important segment second is that this specific block of transparency is going to enable us to achieve the regenerative economy that we're supposed to achieve again the region is actually making significant strides when it comes to setting the right infrastructure if you look into it what happened a year before export 2020 we had this the world's biggest stage again setting the tone on why we are basically positioned best for enabling a regenerative economy and a sustainable economy not just basically set up over here in the region but serving the global markets as well because of our good infrastructure that we have in place once we have a strong regenerative economy this can only be enabled with strong pool of talent now what we have done and what we'll be continued doing as well as the mean of fintech Association as well is our talent programs are quite diverse what we have focused on in partnership with adgm Academy as well is created a sustainable fintech leadership program we have a few more uh amazing programs coming into play that will be launched soon that will be focusing on developing fintech talent that is not just focusing on fintech or product propositions but also understanding how a business needs to look outside thanks to the leadership that we have in the country that instills the the the concept from top down on how we enable impact how we become a great nation which we all are and we all are you know excited to be a part of it number three how this is a launch pad for you not just basically just setting up over here in the region and moving out but being in the region and serving the global markets we have great success stories in the region that are being followed globally from customer onboarding Journeys to uh Talent programs that we are basically building up more and more and that basically sets the tone on why this place is the place where you are right now and where you're sitting is is the exactly right place where you should be anywhere in the world thank you very much and uh look forward to seeing you all