With big financial changes on the horizon, financial experts are looking very closely at how new technologies
will affect traditional banking systems.
With that in mind, local teams in
Dubai are working to prepare for the 2016 GITEX (Gulf Information Technology Exhibition) Technology Week,
the biggest technology convention
of its kind in the Middle East and Africa, to be held Oct. 16-20
at the Dubai World Trade Center.
For five days, this innovative
exchange will attract over
150,000 visitors in business and finance fields as well as government offices and give experts
in the region an opportunity to focus on emerging issues.
One of those emerging issues is the rise in digital payment
technologies. As prominent people like James Barrese, former chief technology officer of PayPal, and Andres
Wolberg-Stok, global head of emerging platforms and services at Citi, visit the
convention in the fall, many attendees will be talking about the increasing
relevance of such technologies as Bitcoin and Blockchain and the state
of technology-enabled banking and finance.
A July 13 press release detailing the upcoming conference
estimates that by 2020, technology-enabled solutions will drive $2 trillion in
global payments. Experts cite platforms such as PayPal as new competitors of
traditional banks.
“Banks, startups and non-banking players are disrupting
the global banking and finance industry with mobile apps, immersive technology
and non-traditional payments.” Barrese said in a press statement. “Emerging
markets like the Middle East have the drive for innovation and opportunity to
build next-gen infrastructure, enabling them to become global leaders in the
digital payments revolution while providing a lifeline for billions of
under-banked people.”
What this competition is going to look like and what banks can do to survive are hot topics.
“Things change,”
Gary Patterson, a CPA with 30 years of senior management
experience who runs FiscalDoctor,
a business management consulting firm offering business coaching and seminars, told the Gulf News Journal on Wednesday. “You can either move with the flow and disrupt yourself – or get
disrupted.”
As digital advances upend all sorts or industries, Patterson
said, it’s important to act quickly.
“There is a point where you have to bet on technology,”
Patterson said. “It becomes such a huge decision that you can’t bet wrong.”
Patterson takes the example of Blockbuster and their
ultimate demise.
“They had great locations,” Patterson said, “but the
locations became expensive. They made incremental changes … they played it safe.”
As for the banks, Patterson said they have enormous
resources that they can marshal to try to stave off the cratering of their
market share due to the entrepreneurs at the gates.
“They have huge advantages.” Patterson said. “They’ve got
tremendous resources – what they don’t have is an entrepreneurial mindset.”
