Ireland And UAE Fintech Collaboration To Drive The National Financial Services Transformation Journey

Leading Irish Fintech companies will be in Dubai to take part in the Irish Fintech Innovation Showcase event organised by Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Government’s trade and innovation agency in collaboration with the Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) and Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

With a line-up of senior speakers from the UAE’s financial sector including Dr. Bernd van Linder, CEO of Commercial Bank of Dubai, F. Christopher Calabia, CEO of Dubai Financial Services Authority, SalmaanJaffery, Chief Business Development Officer at DIFC, the event will also include keynote addresses by Irish Minister Darragh O’Brien T.D., Minister of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Ireland’s Ambassador to the UAE, Aidan Cronin.

Minister Darragh O’Brien T.D. is visiting the UAE as part of a series of 60 global trade events organised by Enterprise Ireland to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day to boost business collaboration with international partners. The global events series will mark the positive impact that Irish businesses are delivering across the world. As well as delivering innovative solutions to meet global challenges, Irish companies are employing almost 1.2 million people internationally.

Linked to this, Enterprise Ireland has also launched a new international campaign ’Ireland: Innovation at the Edge’ which highlights the unique conditions at play in Ireland which have led Irish companies to be among the most innovative in the world and for the Irish exporting economy to perform strongly throughout the pandemic.

Launching Enterprise Ireland’s series of global events and international campaign, Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar, said, “As global economies emerge from the pandemic, putting two tough, disruptive years behind us, it presents an opportunity to reconnect and rebuild valued relationships with our business partners.

“I’m honoured to launch Enterprise Ireland’s international campaign “Ireland: Innovation at the Edge”. This campaign is also about what Ireland offers as a country to our entrepreneurs. We are a small, open economy, a country on the edge of the Atlantic and at the heart of the European Union, a bridge between Europe and the US, where the giants of tech meet the world’s most creative minds, where cutting edge research and industry work hand in hand.”

Welcoming the Irish Fintech Innovation Showcase in Dubai, Irish Minister Darragh O’Brien T.D said,“I am delighted to be here in Dubai to showcase Ireland’s extensive capabilities in Fintech. With our collaborative approach, Irish companies are partnering with leading financial institutions across the world to deliver their financial services technology transformation. The UAE is a key priority for the Irish fintech sector who have the extensive expertise and innovative products to help meet the increasing demand for world leading solutions that we see in the country.”

Irish fintech innovation can support the UAE financial services transformation boom

Globally, fintech is outperforming other finance sub-sectors in terms of growth. Over the next three years, the global fintech market is anticipated to grow around 20 percent per year over to reach a market value of $305 billion by 2025.

Having identified fintech development as a national priority, the UAE is among the countries that are leading the way in embracing the technology innovation that is transforming financial services into the future.

To deliver this national priority, collaboration will be key to achieving the ambitions for the UAE and is demonstrated through the today’s event, the Irish Fintech Innovation Showcase, which brings together a range of partners in this shared agenda.

Highlighting the region’s largest Innovative ecosystem, Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) showcased their recently launched CBD Digital Lab, the first initiative by a UAE bank to establish a R&D facility in the DIFC Innovation Hub.

Dr. Bernd van Linder, CEO of Commercial Bank of Dubai said, “We are delighted to host and support Enterprise Ireland at the CBD Digital Lab. This initiative aligns well with our commitment to back our customers’ ambitions and helps support the growing FinTech ecosystem in the UAE. I am particularly excited to see new ideas and innovations from the Irish FinTech partners and leveraging their knowledge and expertise for the benefit of UAE residents.”

Several Irish fintech major players are already operating across the region with others in late-stage discussions that will lead to their fintech solutions potentially being adopted in the UAE and across the region.

With the Enterprise Ireland team on the ground in the UAE and wider region, Fintech has been earmarked as a priority opportunity for major growth.  Stephen Twomey, Senior Market Advisor for Fintech at Enterprise Ireland MENA said,“The FinTech scene in the UAE and right across the Middle East is both vibrant and thriving with plenty of opportunities for Irish companies to bring their world leading solutions to support the regions financial sector. Irish FinTech is well received in this region for its innovative tech and ability to solve complex problems.Through collaborations such as these at the Irish Fintech Showcase event with Commercial Bank of Dubai and DIFC to name a few, it will lead to more and more Irish fintech innovation being part of the transformation of the financial services sector in the region.”

Ireland is respected worldwide as a Fintech innovation powerhouse

As a global financial services and technology hub, Ireland is a major source of fintech innovation, with the knowledge and expertise that is valued worldwide.This powerhouse reputation for Irish fintech innovation has arisen in part due to decades of R&D funding provided by the Government of Ireland to create an innovation ecosystem, as well as being a global technology hotspot with eight of the top 10 global software companies having their European headquarters in Ireland. The country’s concentrated tech industry spawns a rich stream of world-class talent and start-ups.

Combine this with the fact that Ireland is home to more than 250 of the world’s leading financial services firms and services over 40 percent of all global hedge fund assets. It makes Ireland the fourth-largest exporter of financial services in the European Union.

Enterprise Ireland is proactive in supporting its Fintech sector to thrive and be competitive globally. The state agency currently supports over 200 Irish fintech companies and it is the world’s second biggest fintech investor by deal count. It’s not surprising therefore that six Irish fintech companies are on the global Regtech 100 list.

Leading Irish Fintech innovators participating in the Dubai Showcase

The nine leading Irish Fintech companies at the Irish Fintech Innovation Showcase event provide leading solutions in payments, retail banking technology, compliance, identity management and network management.

• CR2: A world leading vendor in the Digital Banking Platform market, we uniquely offer the broadest range of physical and digital banking channels today.
• Daon: An innovator in developing and deploying biometric authentication and identity assurance solutions worldwide. Daon has pioneered methods for securely and conveniently combining biometric and identity capabilities across multiple channels with large-scale deployments that span payments verification, digital banking, wealth, insurance, telcos, and securing borders and critical infrastructure.
• DX Compliance: Helping banks, FinTechs and payments providers to continually monitor the risk and detect the threat of money laundering to ensure compliance and reduce fines, Dx Compliance do this by significantly improving the status quo in the alerts generated, data collected and the workflows to investigate and report to the relevant authorities.
• Fexco: Having invested in technology to develop and deliver the best solutions to meet customer needs, Fexco processes upwards of €14bn in transactions per annum across FX, treasury, digital tax and government-backed financing sectors. Fexco has developed deep expertise in governance and risk management, as well as lasting relationships with international financial institutions and banks.
• Fund Recs: Develops cloud-based reconciliation software for the global Funds Industry. Fund Recs products help Fund Administrators, Depositaries, Fund Managers and Audit firms reconcile complex data.
• Intuition: A leading global knowledge solutions company, with offices located worldwide, Intuition have developed and deployed award-winning products and services to many of the world’s leading corporate and public sector organizations for over 30 years. Intuition helps businesses use knowledge effectively.
• Monex: The world’s largest and longest established DCC (Dynamic Currency Conversion) provider and a leader in online multi-currency pricing. They deploy next generation multicurrency card payment solutions for Merchants, Payment Processors, and Banks worldwide.
• Swoop: The one-stop money shop for businesses. Swoop is here to simplify and speed up the process businesses go through to access grants, debt and equity.
• TransferMate Global Payments: Global B2B payments technology firm, enabling companies to send and receive cross-border payments faster and easier than ever before.