The recent Global Islamic Economy
Summit in Dubai included a plenary session entitled “The
Tesla of finance is coming: are Islamic banks ready for the imminent FinTech
disruption?”
“The good things about
FinTech companies is speed and customer focus, yet the cons are they are not
widely regulated,” Zubair Ahmed, head of IT and business innovation at Emirates Islamic
Bank, said. “Increasingly, the relationship between banks and FinTech is
being seen as a much more complementary and collaborative one than competitive.”
Abdul Haseeb Basit, CFO of the UK’s
Innovate Finance, agreed on the need for a collaborative approach. He also
talked about how new entrants face a lot of red tape.
“The challenge for startups is
regulation,” Basit said. “FinTech realizes that
regulation is where banks have an advantage, while they also have the ability
to access a wide customer base. Banks already have that scale so it makes sense
for FinTechs to partner with them rather than market on their own.”
Basit mentioned that investors
looking for the next unicorn should look at remittances; he thinks companies
that specialize in this field can come in and quickly capture market share.
