The Capital Market Authority organized a virtual Seminar titled “The Role of Financial Technology in the Future of Capital Markets” in collaboration with the  Arab Securities Association to discuss the latest developments in the securities markets and the challenge they encounter with regard to financial technology transactions as well as the key regulatory requirements to safeguard the participants.

HE Abdullah Salim Al Salmi, Executive President of the CMA said that employing financial technology (Fintech) is rapidly increasing as Fintech companies are increasing and they changed the methods, modes and nature of business. He added, that Fintech  has introduced to the  banking, finance and  insurance  innovative methods that  eased the work of financial institutions and brought them closer to the consumer and  created modern methods serving wider segments of the community which were unable to benefit from such services. He said, though such initiatives have eased and facilitated the interaction with the financial services through technology, however, created certain challenges which needs to be addressed through tech initiatives on the part of the regulators such as “Regtech” and “Subtech”.

Al Salmi emphasized the importance of the regulators coping with such technology developments to perform their roles in safeguarding the investors and ensuring the stability, integrity and fairness of the markets, and at the same time ensuing adequate space for innovations and benefiting from the tech revolution.

The seminar included a number of topics the key were how to recover from the impact of the pandemic and how the tech can save the markets in case of any pandemic. The seminar also highlighted the key aspects of the future of Fintech from the regulatory perspective  and virtual assets, decentralized financing of the capital markets and other related topics.