*Workshop held as part of building a vibrant fintech and digital banking ecosystem in Qatar

Fintech remains a priority and QDB recently launched the ‘IBM Innovation Hub Doha’ during the Global Entrepreneurship Week, said bank’s CEO Abdulaziz bin Nasser al-Khalifa.

He was addressing a workshop on “Shariah Compliance Issues of Crypto assets,” which QDB hosted in association with the Association of National Development Finance Institutions in Member Countries of The Islamic Development (ADFIMI) at the Intercontinental Hotel–The City on Monday.

Al-Khalifa said, “We believe that enabling fintech requires building specialised knowledge and spreading the necessary awareness and with this intent, we organised this intriguing workshop, which garnered a phenomenal response from the participants and industry at large. This event forms the part of our efforts to build a vibrant fintech and digital banking ecosystem in Qatar, marking another step in a new era of growth for Qatari companies which will enormously help in achieving Qatar National Vision 2030.”


Dignitaries and delegates who attended the workshop.

In the past few years, fintech has emerged as one of the biggest disruptors of the once-traditional banking industry. Innovative banking services that offer increased efficiency and lower costs have helped propel the rise of fintech as a global industry.

According to QDB research, during the first quarter (Q1) of 2018, the global fintech market witnessed a total investment of $57.9bn across 875 deals.

Qatar has been fast catching up to the globally trending technological developments and is shaping up well as a technology-led economy. Thanks to the right regulatory environment, extremely competitive operating costs, government support, funding support and a ready financial services sector to work with, the banking sector is finding it easier to transform and upgrade as per the changing market dynamics.

Always staying at the forefront, QDB is taking tremendous efforts to offer the much needed push to Qatar’s financial landscape, aptly backed by technology.

The workshop highlighted Qatar’s commitment to promote adoption of financial technology (fintech). The ensuing year means big for Qatar’s fintech aspirations and QDB will play the role of a front runner in making this happen with its slew of measures announced recently and some interesting developments will be announced soon.

Established as an autonomous, independent and non-profit international organisation, ADFIMI started its operations in September 1987 at its headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey. Currently, it has nearly 40 members from some 18 countries.

HE the Qatar Central Bank Governor, Sheikh Abdulla bin Saoud al-Thani is an honorary member of ADFIMI. QDB is a member in ADFIMI, representing Qatar.

The workshop highlighted Qatar’s commitment to promoting adoption of fintech and focused on topics such as "Islamic Fintech Regulatory Landscape" and "Cryptocurrencies from Shariah Standpoint."

Various guest speakers during the workshop shared their global fintech experience as well as explored Shariah-compliance aspects of cryptocurrencies and any specific challenges.

The emergence of fintech is only the latest wave of innovation to have hit the banking industry. While banks have undergone various technology-enabled innovation phases before, fintech has the potential to lower barriers of entry to the financial services market and elevate the role of data as a key commodity and drive the emergence of new business models. The workshop aptly reflected this very notion and helped participants in riding the fintech wave.



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