UAE - FinTech firms invited to an innovation challenge

The Central Bank of the UAE and the Abu Dhabi Global Market, the capital’s international financial hub, on Wednesday invited financial technology companies to compete in the annual FinTech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge.

This year’s challenge aims at developing innovative solutions to serve the financing needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. It also seeks to drive the adoption of regulatory technology solutions to "improve compliance outcomes and enhance regulatory processes", the central bank said in a statement.

The innovation challenge comes at the most “opportune timing” and provides a “unique platform to facilitate collaboration between banks and tech firms” to conduct live tests under a controlled environment before the formal launch, Sabri Al Azazi, chief operating officer of the central bank, said.

“Banks and tech firms are able to gather real-life or close-to-real-life data to simulate the production environment and user feedback on their new FinTech products and services.”

Both local and global companies are eligible to participate in the challenge.

Successful firms will receive a grant of $20,000 (Dh73,400) each to partner with a corporate champion and co-develop a proof-of-concept solution to a problem statement. Corporate champions include First Abu Dhabi Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank and Etihad Credit Insurance.

Successful PoCs will be subsequently showcased at the FinTech Abu Dhabi 2020 event in November.


Source: thenational.ae