In early Could, we attended the Dubai FinTech Summit, and acquired the chance to talk with a few of the brightest minds within the business, together with Emirates NBD.
Over 8,000 guests from 118 totally different international locations made the journey to Dubai to be taught from business consultants and achieve insights from the panels and discussions happening. One of many trailblazers within the business many got here to see was Emirates NBD, a banking group within the MENAT (Center East, North Africa and Türkiye) area.
Attendees skilled three headline periods that includes senior leaders from the financial institution on the principle occasion levels, in addition to unique panel discussions at its pavilion. The financial institution additionally hosted interactive activations by key enterprise items, showcasing cutting-edge merchandise and improvements designed to teach and have interaction guests.
The Fintech Occasions acquired the chance to take a seat down with Emirates NBD group chief platform officer, Saud Al Dhawyani to listen to about his insights from the occasion.
Al Dhawyani expressed his enthusiasm concerning the Summit, stating: “It’s an important alternative to community with friends from different organisations and meet loads of nice founders too. You will discover the fintechs in any respect levels of growth right here: some are at an early stage and others are on the mature stage.
“Among the most fascinating concepts we’ve got seen right here have been surrounding funds. Now we have additionally seen nice innovation in synthetic intelligence, which has began choosing up lately. Now we have additionally seen a number of issues within the compliance and regtech space.”
Cooperation with fintechs
The Dubai Fintech Summit was a breeding floor for brand spanking new concepts and partnerships. It allowed many up-and-coming fintechs to speak with incumbents within the discipline. However is cooperation between banks and fintechs possible contemplating fintechs are identified to disrupt the ‘established order’?
Al Dhawyani mentioned: “It relies upon. It will depend on your know-how panorama and your structure and blueprint.
“Banks, naturally are very advanced, and a few banks would have the next diploma of complexity relying on the age of the know-how elements.
“Thankfully, we’ve been one of many banks that has made an fascinating choice. 5 years in the past, we reworked our whole know-how stack which allowed us to have the flexibility to seamlessly combine with any elements simply. This enables us to leverage any companion ecosystems and combine fintechs into the structure seamlessly.”
On account of this tech stack change, Al Dhawyani additional defined: “In comparison with banks in different areas we’re sitting on younger know-how stacks. We don’t have the legacy tech which may be present in banks in developed markets.
“That offers us way more flexibility and a bonus to adapt. We even have seamless interoperability with fashionable tech that offers us the flexibility to be a lot quicker in responding to our buyer demand and expectations.”
Will the panorama have modified a lot subsequent yr?
2024 was touted to be a yr of change for fintech. Nonetheless, 2025 will undeniably host some totally different tendencies that take the world by storm. Concluding Al Dhawyani appeared to the longer term: “I feel the dialog round synthetic intelligence will mature additional, particularly with the latest curiosity from the governments round AI.
“Banks began reaping a few of the preliminary advantages out of AI, generative AI and many others. so between this and a few developments from regulators, I consider that we will begin speaking about how we will combine with machines and different applied sciences, slightly than solely anticipating prospects to make use of our cellular apps.
“I consider that we must always take into consideration a automotive like Tesla banking with us. Or how would your wearable watch financial institution with us?
“I feel it’s going to be an fascinating yr. Particularly as a result of what we learn about prospects goes to alter. They won’t even be a human!”
