With the explosion of financial technology (fintech) and the resulting disruption of traditional business models, banking financial services and insurance (BFSI) firms have no choice but to now adopt new technologies to adapt to the changing market dynamics. For our latest interview, we sat down with Sagheer Mufti the Chief Operating Officer of Abu Dhabi…
While the GCC region remains a technologically sophisticated BFSI market, many financial institutions are still missing out on the digital innovations that are radically changing business models and redefining customer experiences. Digital-only banking is a new wave that is expected to change the way the banking industry works, with concepts such as card-less payments, blockchain…
Dubai Financial Services Authority has recently announced the launch of its Innovation Testing Licence (ITL). The ITL will ease regulatory requirements for firms that provide financial technology services in the region, allowing qualifying firms to develop and test innovative concepts from within the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). Firms under the new licence will not…
Innovations in financial technology (FinTech) are rapidly disrupting business models across the finance sector. Financial institutions need to adopt these technologies in order to remain competitive, improve efficiency and increase profitability. In an attempt to identify these essential technologies, Naseba’s analysts reached out to over 100 Chief Technology Officers, Chief Information Officers and IT Directors…
The fintech revolution is taking hold in the Middle East, and bringing with it a slew of attention-grabbing developments affecting the entire finance industry. Fintech trends have spread from the offices of startups to the hallways of the more established, sedate banking institutions. This is unsurprising, given that what the banking sector needs now more…
The meteoric rise of fintech has left many traditional financial institutions lagging behind in terms of technology – and many banks have chosen to see this as a threat. In a 2015 survey by PwC, 83 percent of financial services professionals indicated that they were concerned about losing business to new fintech startups. The fintech…
The GCC, or Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman) has many advantages as a tech market. Its benefits include its comparatively high proportion of youth, and its strategic location – Dubai, which is emerging as the regional tech hub, is within a four-hour flight radius of one-third…
Fintech has become a familiar entry in the banking lexicon. Gone are the days when “finance technology” was a brand new concept, spoken of only in the pages of niche publications. Fintech is now a full-fledged phenomenon, a darling of both the tech world and the finance industry alike. In 2015, fintech received 14.5 billion…
African tech startups received a total of over 185 million USD over the course of 2015. A significant proportion of this investment was dedicated to “social enterprises”, i.e. profit-making companies with social impact as their main goal. Some African entrepreneurs have voiced concern over the disproportionate amount of funding and attention given to these social…