His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, First Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the UAE, and President of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), today met with global policymakers and financial industry leaders on the sidelines of the second Dubai FinTech Summit (DFS).
Influential decision makers that HH Sheikh Maktoum engaged with included Adena T Friedman, Chair and CEO of Nasdaq; Oh Se-Hoon, Mayor of Seoul, South Korea; Nic Dreckman, Group CEO of Julius Baer; and Nik Storonsky, Founder and CEO of Revolut.
The two-day Dubai FinTech Summit, organised by DIFC, the leading global financial centre in the MEASA region, opened today, bringing together over 8,000 decision-makers, over 300 thought leaders and more than 200 exhibitors to discuss the latest innovations and challenges and showcase cutting-edge technologies.
His Highness’s engagements focused on various areas including exchange of expertise in FinTech innovation, urban infrastructure development, and new capital market, wealth management and FinTech opportunities emerging as a result of Dubai’s new policies and initiatives.
HH Sheikh Maktoum’s meeting with Adena T Friedman, Chair and CEO of Nasdaq, one of the world’s largest stock exchanges, explored stronger ties between Dubai’s financial ecosystem and Nasdaq.
His Highness highlighted Dubai’s strategic initiatives to enhance the total volume of its stock markets to AED3 trillion and deepen its capital market ecosystem, making it a key destination for investors from across the world. Collaboration with global players like Nasdaq is vital to Dubai’s strategic efforts to advance investment growth and foster technology innovation in financial services, he added.
HH Sheikh Maktoum further said that Dubai’s long-standing partnership with Nasdaq has supported it in forging new pathways for excellence in the financial sector, and raising its status as a leading international financial centre.
Friedman commended Dubai’s progressive approach and expressed Nasdaq’s interest in exploring opportunities for collaboration in areas such as capital market development, and regulatory innovation.
His Highness’s meeting with Oh Se-hoon, Mayor of Seoul, explored avenues of collaboration between Dubai and Seoul, particularly in the areas of urban infrastructure development, technology, and innovation. Sheikh Maktoum emphasised Dubai’s commitment to fostering partnerships with leading global cities like Seoul, with the aim of exchanging expertise and best practices to drive sustainable growth and prosperity. He noted that both cities share many complementarities in their development journeys and the growth of their financial industries, which can be tapped to advance mutual growth.
Mayor Oh Se-hoon expressed his appreciation for Dubai’s leadership in various sectors and expressed keen interest in sharing experiences in the FinTech sector, to support the sustained development of their economies.
HH Sheikh Maktoum also met with Nic Dreckmann, Group CEO of Julius Baer, a leading global player in the private banking industry, and Nikolay Storonsky, Founder and CEO of Revolut, an international neobank and financial technology company.
His Highness expressed Dubai’s commitment to creating a conducive environment for wealth management, investment and financial technology excellence, highlighting the city’s strategic initiatives to attract high-net-worth individuals, family offices and innovative FinTech companies. Dreckmann and Storonsky commended Dubai’s exceptional growth over the last decade as a global financial hub and expressed their companies’ interest in expanding their presence in the region, and leveraging Dubai’s advanced infrastructure and investor-friendly policies to serve their clients effectively.
With a presence in over 60 locations worldwide, including the Dubai International Financial Centre, Julius Baer is one of the globe’s leading providers of wealth management solutions. With assets under management worth CHF427 billion at the end of 2023, Julius Baer is the world’s largest pure-play private bank.
Revolut is a global neobank and financial technology company that offers banking services for retail customers and businesses. The company serves 40 million personal customers and 500,000 business customers in over 150 countries and regions.
In line with the goal of the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 to establish Dubai as one of the world’s top four global financial hubs by 2033, the Dubai FinTech Summit is designed to encourage cross-border collaboration and innovation, which are pivotal to transforming the global FinTech sector. The event presents a unique opportunity to explore emerging FinTech trends and their potential to drive financial progress in the MEASA region.
The meetings were attended by His Excellency Essa Kazim, Governor of DIFC; Arif Amiri, Chief Executive Officer of DIFC Authority; and Mohammad Alblooshi, CEO of DIFC Innovation Hub.
