FinTech | Page 7

While many firms are grasping the opportunity (or need) to embrace fintech, many are yet to open up.

Blockchain is the big buzzword in financial services at the moment– seen as the next big thing, much like 'big data' was before it, and the 'cloud' was before that.

Founders Katharine Budd and Ian Dillon launched NOW Money to provide expat workers who don't have access to banking and remittance services with direct access to a current account, debit card and remittance from their proprietary app and service center.

Khalid Elgibali, Division President – Middle East and North Africa at Mastercard, shares his insights to the payments industry..

We didn't start NOW Money to "disrupt" the existing banking system. It's the reluctance of traditional banks to bank low-income people that yielded the opportunity for NOW Money.

Bringing together designers, developers and entrepreneurs, GlassQube Startup Weekend FinTech Abu Dhabi was held in November in the UAE capital by TechStars, with the support of Google for Entrepreneurs.

Abu Dhabi-based startup coworking space GlassQube and Startup Weekend Abu Dhabi are organizing Startup Weekend Fintech, a 54-hour hackathon on December 8 - 10, 2016 in Abu Dhabi.

When it comes to ensuring the success of your fintech startup, the key rule to follow is to pick a big problem to solve, which has a huge addressable market, and then come up with a plan to solve it.

A plethora of trends have punctuated the fintech landscape, giving rise to a new era of investment, customer service, and digital innovation. The fintech revolution has turned conventional approaches to financial technology on their heads.

With a ringside seat to the daily struggles and victories of the region's entrepreneurs, Ghanem is perhaps the best person to shed light on factors that stand in the way of the region's startups achieving scale and making it big.

The startup's solution acts as an intermediate bridge between billing entities and banks, allowing the entire payment cycle to be carried out digitally, in a secure manner.

With a large section of Egypt's population being underserved in their access to financial services, the country is emerging as a hotbed for fintech ventures.

According to CB Insights, 19 fintech startups have joined the exclusive "unicorn club" of venture-backed companies valued at over $1 billion, many of which are in wealth management, peer-to-peer lending marketplaces, price comparison and payments.

The financial industry has been so limited by process and tradition that it has fallen behind in terms of innovation and digital development, leaving opportunities for less-established fintech startup businesses to seize opportunities in the marketplace.