In early Could, we attended the Dubai FinTech Summit, and acquired the chance to talk with a number of the brightest minds within the trade, together with Emirates NBD.
Over 8,000 guests from 118 completely different nations made the journey to Dubai to study from trade specialists and acquire insights from the panels and discussions going down. One of many trailblazers within the trade 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 phases, in addition to unique panel discussions at its pavilion. The financial institution additionally hosted interactive activations by key enterprise models, showcasing cutting-edge merchandise and improvements designed to coach and interact 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 in regards to the Summit, stating: “It’s an ideal alternative to community with friends from different organisations and meet quite a lot of nice founders too. You’ll discover the fintechs in any respect phases of improvement right here: some are at an early stage and others are on the mature stage.
“A few of the most fascinating concepts we’ve got seen right here have been surrounding funds. We’ve got additionally seen nice innovation in synthetic intelligence, which has began choosing up just lately. We’ve got additionally seen just a few 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 recognized to disrupt the ‘established order’?
Al Dhawyani stated: “It relies upon. It will depend on your expertise panorama and your structure and blueprint.
“Banks, naturally are very complicated, and a few banks would have a better diploma of complexity relying on the age of the expertise elements.
“Thankfully, we’ve been one of many banks that has made an fascinating choice. 5 years in the past, we remodeled our total expertise stack which allowed us to have the power to seamlessly combine with any elements simply. This permits 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 expertise stacks. We don’t have the legacy tech which may be present in banks in developed markets.
“That provides us far more flexibility and a bonus to adapt. We even have seamless interoperability with trendy tech that offers us the power to be a lot sooner in responding to our buyer demand and expectations.”
Will the panorama have modified a lot subsequent 12 months?
2024 was touted to be a 12 months of change for fintech. Nevertheless, 2025 will undeniably host some completely different traits that take the world by storm. Concluding Al Dhawyani regarded to the longer term: “I feel the dialog round synthetic intelligence will mature additional, particularly with the current curiosity from the governments round AI.
“Banks began reaping a number of the preliminary advantages out of AI, generative AI and many others. so between this and a few developments from regulators, I imagine that we are able to begin speaking about how we are able to combine with machines and different applied sciences, reasonably than solely anticipating prospects to make use of our cell apps.
“I imagine that we should 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 12 months. Particularly as a result of what we learn about prospects goes to alter. They won’t even be a human!”
