Cashless societies, open banking, digital transformation and financial inclusion were some of the hot topics under discussion on day one of Seamless Middle East 2022 in Dubai.
More than 10,000 visitors are registered for the event with 350 speakers lined up – with live attractions, demonstrations and product launches on the Dubai World Trade Centre expo floor.
The Fintech Times team headed along to engaging sessions in the conference theatres with our morning kicking off with a panel focused on embracing the experiential, collaborative and automated paradigm.
“It’s very important to recognise that your customer who is a smart customer needs to feel they have control and has trust in that interaction with a financial institution,” commented Vikram Sandhu, senior VP of digital transformation at Emirates NBD.
Later, his Excellency Dr. Ahmed Aboul Gheit, secretary general of the Arab League , delivered an afternoon opening speech while unveiling the Arab Digital Economy Index Report, an important initiative of the Arab vision that reflects on the current digital economic situation of all Arab Countries.
The report aims to reflect the current digital and economic situation of all Arab countries, highlighting strengths, opportunities and areas of development. It also provides key insights and recommendations to policymakers across the Arab region to achieve long-term economic and digital growth objectives, improve productivity levels, and grow the labour market and business.
In an afternoon session, panellists including Grant Niven, head of group digital at Banque Saudi Fransi,
Vikas Prabhu, head of product at Tecnotree, Vineet Munot, head of transaction banking at National Bank of Bahrain and Miljan Stamenkovic, general manager MENA for Mambu, reflected on driving new business models with new relationship approaches with a focus on open banking.
Also in the afternoon, Mark Rennie Davis, chief advisor & founder of Advistic Consulting, held a fascinating chat on the era of cashlessness with Ozgur Ozvardar, vice president & general manager of Verifone.
Ozvardar commented: “I was appointed to this region almost 10 years ago and back then it was 70 per cent cash. Now you can pay with your digital card. This is already a cashless society.”
A focus on cashlessness continued with Davis and Mohammed Riffi, executive VP at S2M.
“The payment landscape should focus on fraud prevention, strong authentication whille payments infrastructure has to continue to mordernise and be compliant with the international standard of security,” said Riffi.
The Fintech Times is this year’s Seamless TV partner; we’re interviewing industry leaders LIVE from the Seamless TV booth. Find out more about Seamless TV here.
See you for more action on Day Two of #SeamlessDXB!
