UAE Central Bank and ADGM invite FinTech companies for an innovation challenge
02 July, 2020
The Central Lender of the UAE and the Abu Dhabi Global Marketplace, the capital’s international financial hub, on Wednesday invited financial technology companies to compete in the total annual FinTech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge.
This year’s challenge is aimed at developing innovative answers to serve the financing needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, it seeks to operate a vehicle the adoption of regulatory technology answers to "improve compliance outcomes and enhance regulatory functions", the central bank said in a statement.
The innovation challenge comes at most “opportune timing” and a “unique platform to facilitate collaboration between banks and tech firms” to conduct live tests under a managed environment before the formal start, Sabri Al Azazi, chief operating officer of the central bank, said.
“Banks and tech businesses have the ability to gather real-life or perhaps close-to-real-life info to simulate the development environment and user feedback on the new FinTech products and services.”
Both regional and global companies meet the criteria to participate in the task.
Successful firms will receive a grant of $20,000 (Dh73,400) every single to partner with a corporate champion and co-develop a proof-of-concept solution to a problem statement. Corporate champions include Initial Abu Dhabi Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank and Etihad Credit Insurance.
Good PoCs will be subsequently showcased at the FinTech Abu Dhabi 2020 event in November.
An additional funding of up to $40,000 will get offered to help the further advancement of the PoC solutions and fast-track their deployment to boost SME funding and regulatory outcomes found in the UAE, the central bank said.
The finalists and their respective corporate champions will establish the PoC solutions in ADGM’s Digital Laboratory, with guidance from the central bank and the ADGM Financial Offerings Regulatory Authority.
The Digital Laboratory is an electronic sandbox and marketplace that permits open collaboration and innovation.
“The FSRA is excited to co-start the innovation task … through the ADGM Digital Lab to overcome the soreness factors faced by the financial services sector in the UAE and the wider region,” Richard Teng, leader of FSRA, said.
“The problem statements reflect the imperatives brought about by the current pandemic, which includes accelerated the need to strengthen financing mechanisms for SMEs and digital on boarding,” he added.
Applicants will end up being assessed how well the perfect solution is addresses the problem affirmation, the maturity and scalability of the solution and how it really is deployed found in the UAE.
Source: www.thenational.ae