Seeding Success: The UAE as a Global Fintech Hub

[Music] good morning everyone I'm so happy to be here to be talking about some of the latest developments that we've been doing at the Central Bank of the U I'm sure as most of you are aware the entire world of financial services has been undergoing undertaking significant changes mainly driven by innovation technology and also a spirit of collaboration between regulators and The Wider market and let me tell you that the uee hasn't just been keeping Pace with what's happening globally but we have been setting the bar not only regionally but also globally so let me start a little bit by you know giving you a brief about our Finch strategy which is in line with the UAE national digital strategy and the uee 2031 Vision the Central Bank fch strategy is comprised of five key pillars number one the regulatory framework we aim to develop smart regulations that allow for Innovation to grow in this country number two collaboration we've been just to date collaborating with more than 60 central banks and more than 1, and 200 regulated fintech firms from all over the world and more than 800 financial institutions Talent especially you know AI Readiness has been at the center of what we do we've been working closely with universities like MIT Oxford to help co-create programs that are very Niche and very specific to upskill and res skill local talent of course you know we can't forget our financial Market infrastructure we've been revamping the entire Financial Market infrastructure with building things like our instant payment platform Annie our cbdc Central Bank digital currency our virtual asset framework and other key financial Market initiatives and finally strengthening the fintech ecosystem allowing startups and Banks and fintechs to come together work together all in a very collaborative way now let me tell you how do we bring this Vision into life just this year we have issued five Boke fintech regulations bringing the total to 10 fintech extremely comprehensive regulations at the central bank one of the notable regulation is our stable Co regulation this stable regulation which is now becoming a global Benchmark for other countries to follow for the first time allow for the issuance of a Durham stable coin and allow you know focuses on a number of activities centered around stable coin from issuance to custody conversion and all activities and services related to stable coins open finance is another key example we have developed one of its kind open finance framework that allows fex and Banks to seamlessly share data and carry out payment initiation activities our open finance regulation goes Way Beyond payments it also includes Insurance Banking and soon enough we will allow also for Capital market products to be captured within our open finance framework this is the way how we're moving the economy toward the digital economy and enabling an open data Society now of course you may be asking regulation is not enough um that's why we've been revamping completely our our financial Market infrastructure if you take for example Annie our instant payment platform Annie allows you to initiate and settle payments in the UAE instantaneously soon enough you will be able to make payments via facial recognition in the uee also through Annie Jan our car domestic scheme is the first of its kind which will help us promote digital payments we will be rolling out you know jwan scheme hopefully early next year and it's going to be in phases alar it's our open finance platform and if for the first time we will be giving control back to the people to control and the way they want to manage their data the financial services data and and Beyond and more importantly open finance will allow us for the first time to bring a whole range of personalized Financial Services products to the UA Market Market finally the digital Durham our Central Bank digital currency with all the pilot phases by now complete we're very ready to issue the digital Durham by early next year the digital Durham is one of the groundbreaking projects that we've been working on at the central bank and will be one of the most comprehensive and sophisticated Central Bank digital currencies in the world now of course collaboration has been at the heart of what we're doing and just to give you a quick example um of what we're doing we're helping uee based fex to expand and grow beyond the UAE into markets that were very difficult you know to do business in especially from the UAE markets like the UK India Pakistan Brazil Singapore Hong Kong and many many many others take for example project aperta which is led by the bank of international settlements and and the UAE Brazil India and Hong Kong and Singapore project aperta will allow uee based fex for the first time ever to passport into other countries allowing them to do business in a market of population of more than 350 million people so how about this as a game changer the other initiative is our Ambridge and we've been a founding member of Ambridge along with China Hong Kong and Thailand and it's the first largest and sophisticated crossw wholesale cbdc payment infrastructure ever we've been Pro we've processed so far more than $7 billion through the ambd platform and we are set to transform the way we transfer and and conduct crossb payments so of course you may be asking what is next centralized ekyc platform which will be launching very soon it will allow for the first time to cut the onboarding time for account opening from sometimes 90 days to just few hours and this is going to be a complete Game Cher something never has been done anywhere in the world at a nationwide at such a scale the ekyc platform will be open to all financial institutions in the U from Banks insurance companies payment companies finex exchange exchange houses and then broker dealers and any other financial institution license in the UAA also our Innovation Hub just 3 weeks ago we launched our Innovation Hub in Dubai with an aim to bring everyone together not only The Regulators but also Banks finex big techs large technology companies and service providers with an name to help everyone to co-create and develop together new and Innovative Financial products and services The Innovation Hub will serve as a bridge not only domestically but also internationally will allow us to reach other countries in in a way where we can going to bring you know other countries to the U in a ways where it was very difficult to do um but now obviously doable with UD Technologies and this is going to be a groundbreaking Innovation bridge that we will be launching soon through our Innovation Hub so with this let me ask everyone to join us in building the future of Finance together thank you [Music]