FinTech Abu Dhabi commences as Covid-19 pandemic delivers digital payments in focus

FinTech Abu Dhabi commences today amid developing demand for digital obligations and other personal technology services found in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Several senior officials, bankers and investors including the governor of the central lender of the UAE Abdulhamid Alahmadi and Ahmed Al Sayegh, minister of condition and chairman of Abu Dhabi Global Industry will speak at the event, which has been held online this year because of the pandemic. Invite-simply presentations were manufactured on Tuesday, but the public event begins today.

“The FinTech Abu Dhabi Festival provides a glimpse in to the future of the financial services industry by showcasing the ground breaking and creative advancements of the industry in the past year,” Mr Alahmadi, said. “These developments have underlined the energy technology harnesses in increasing the way we conduct organization. We are also starting to witness the emergence of unicorn start-ups in the UAE, even more reinforcing the UAE’s posture as a respected FinTech destination.”

Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, chairman of the UAE Banking institutions Federation, Vanessa Colella, chief innovation officer at Citigroup, Edward Knight, vice chairman of Nasdaq and Nadya Hijazi, global brain of digital at HSBC may also speak during the event.

“Our objective is to continuously develop a mature ecosystem that encourages entrepreneurship and imagination in the FinTech space, by leveraging pragmatic lessons and guidelines supplied by our peers from around the world,” Mr Alahmadi said. “This is portion of our broader perspective to determine the UAE as a global hub for financial sector innovation and expansion.”

Abu Dhabi is buying start-ups to grow the development ecosystem in the capital within a broader monetary diversification strategy. The federal government last year established Hub71, an international technology hub at ADGM and is normally channelling investments in start-ups through a Dh535 million ventures fund.

Demand for digital obligations and other financial technology solutions has surged worldwide as even more people use online banking offerings to transfer money together with pay for buys amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Amir Yaron, governor of Lender of Israel, gives a keynote speech on the “promise and probable of financial tech and innovation in bridging Israel and the Middle East", through the event.

Israel and the UAE include normalised relations following signing of the Abraham Accord found in Washington DC found in September.