The emerging trends of the regional and global prepaid market will be the focus of an upcoming summit in Dubai.

The fifth annual Prepaid Summit: Middle East will take place on March 19 at the Conrad Hotel.

The global prepaid market, which will hit $800 billion in revenues by 2017, is on track to achieve strong growth, said Douglas Blakey, group editor for Consumer Finance at Timetric Financial Services and spokesperson for coming event.

“The region-dedicated summit has been on the heels of the growth trend for five years now. This year’s conference agenda is well-equipped to showcase global growth phenomena in a local context,” said Blakey.

“In fact, our speakers will consider how this role is reversed by taking a look through the regional lens to explore how prepaid in the Mena region reflects the global growth,” he said.

He indicated that more than 150 industry leaders will listen to the summit’s expert speaker line-up throw light on topics such as the most region-relevant regulation, map the evolution of prepaid and consider how prepaid is changing the corporate and consumer financial service markets.

“The increasing awareness of prepaid products among consumers is creating new expectations and marketers must gear up and fast develop new, engaging and relevant card products,” Blakey said.

He cited the key drivers influencing the regional prepaid market as increased mobile-enabled internet use and strong retail growth.

The Annual Prepaid Middle East Awards, which is part of the summit, will recognise developments made and performance achieved over the past 12 months with specific selection criteria for each individual award.

The deadline for the awards nomination is February 3, he added. - TradeArabia News Service