“Our challenges have changed but we still share similarities with ancient banking times, when we were all looking for fast-paced abilities to adapt banking delivery to our lifestyle challenges,” said Noelia Romanillos – Head of Financial Services GTM South Europe & UKI at ServiceNow – at this year’s 2nd Annual Future Banks Summit MENA which took place at Swissotel Al Murooj, Dubai, UAE. In a highly digitalized world, we tend to notice an ongoing trend – every aspect of society is going through a technological transformation, especially when we’re looking at banking and finance. Today, both individuals and corporations have the ability – round-the-clock – to look into their financial information, make payments and proposals, and perform a whole host of transactions with the click of a few buttons.
This month, Verve Management hosted its 2nd Annual Future Banks Summit MENA, where attendees explored the path to fintech transformation within the region, eventually making it a global leader in finance. This has much to do with the region embracing advances in technology, to steer the industry toward the direction of delivering efficient products and services to a young demographic in order to meet the expectations of the digital consumer. Concerning untapped potential, the region is well-positioned to become a sizeable territory for effective digital banking innovation, which is what key industry professionals focused on throughout the course of the two-day summit.
This heightened digitalization can, however, be a double-edged sword. Through the course of his keynote discussion on the era of digitalization, Vilmos Lorincz – Managing Director of Data Products at Lloyds Banking Group UK – provided the attendees with insight on rethinking business strategies in order to flourish within the ecosystem. “The compliance level is just the baseline; it’s really important that you protect the data of people, ethically.” He said, emphasizing the importance of data protection. The distinguished use of digitalization within the BFSI sector pushes the requirement for substantial regulations in order to eradicate any negative outcomes on both the workforce and the end consumer.
Through digitalization, the banking sector is viable to both innovation and a rise in entrepreneurship; however, some corporations are still wary about going digital due to the high level of risk involved.
“Security and compliance must become part of the culture of organizations to mitigate risk truly,” said Kiran Bafna – Managing Director – APAC, India & Japan at Thomson Reuters – on his views surrounding the steps taken to enable cultural change in a truly modern technological ecosystem. “Only if technological integration is in line with an organization’s vision, true integration can take place.” He added.
Some of the corporations in continual support of the Future Banks Summit MENA this year were Gold Sponsors – Kissflow, ServiceNow & Enfint; Silver Sponsor – Confirmation.com; Bronze Sponsors – eMudhra, Keyless Technologies, Creatio + Banza, & Thought Machine; Networking Sponsor – Trejhara; and Associate Sponsor – System Technologies.
All in all, Verve Management was honored to be in the presence of some of the most renowned thought leaders – both internationally and regionally – focused on one goal, which was to explore the MENA region’s financial landscape and the process through which it is driven by innovation and technological advancement.
