Some of the world’s freshest and fastest growing financial technology solutions are coming to the GCC to demonstrate how they could help revolutionise financial services in the Mena region.

Six leading solutions covering hot topics such as organisational profitability and efficiency, meeting customer needs regardless of their location, understanding digital customer preferences and methods of delivering financial products on digital channels will all be on show at the  Meftech 2017, being held in Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec) on March 13 and 14.

The two-day exhibition will also showcase an innovative technology that tackles the tricky issue of testing products in a low-risk environment and an impressive solution that increase decision making speeds and accuracy by removing bottlenecks.

More than 1,000 board level guests from some of the leading banks in the region will attend Meftech 2017. The delegates attending this year’s event are estimated to control 95% of the USD13billion spent on financial technology in the Middle East every year.

The event organisers recently asked numerous board level executives which one product they felt would be of most interest to them this year and used the responses to help shape which financial technology firms would be invited to showcase their cutting-edge solutions.

Chris Fountain, managing director of organisers Turret Media, said: “From our discussions with industry leaders we sought to identify the industry’s most pressing technological demands as we entered 2017.

“We believe these six solutions, as well as many others we will be announcing soon, cover off the various answers we received, therefore we know this year’s event will be of huge value to the executives attending and the financial technology providers exhibiting their solutions.

“They are a perfect example of the incredible innovation within the financial technology sector right now that will make a huge difference to financial firms and consumers in the year ahead and provide a snapshot of what’s in store for delegates at Meftech 2017.”

The executives Meftech spoke to revealed that boosting organisational profitability, efficiency and growth is a top priority. Wolters Kluwer OneSumX, is a product designed to meet complex finance, risk and compliance challenges.
Financial leaders who identified the need to meet customer needs, regardless of their location, as their top concern will be keen to see KAL’s Retail-Teller Machine (RTM). The system works like an ATM, but instead of dispensing cash, prints a secure ticket that is exchanged for cash at the shopping till.

Modern financial customers, especially Millennials, are demanding that firms know their preferences before establishing a digital relationship. Suntec's Xelerate dynamically matches offers and combines products and services to increase transactional values.

Meanwhile, ECSFin's offering of Try/Buy gives financial institutions a low-risk opportunity to test-drive a range of solutions, whether messaging, payments or processing – another key goal identified by the executives.

Another solution that will tackle a top priority is Enterprise Information Management from OpenText, which is a key technology to increase compliance and security, improve customer experience, and optimise business efficiency to achieve higher profits.

A critical challenge identified by the finance leaders was the need to increase decision making speeds and accuracy through efficient process systems. The Loxon corporate lending system reduces lead time, provides analysis to mitigate portfolio risk and adds automation to remove bottlenecks.

Board level guests from some of the leading banks in the region have already confirmed their attendance at Meftech, including FGB, ADIB, Qatar Islamic Bank and Bahrain Islamic Bank.

The cast of keynote speakers includes three of the world’s leading lights on financial technologies: Chris Skinner, CEO of TheFinanser.com; Jim Marous, the owner of the Digital Banking Report; and Bank Innovation Consulting Expert JP Nicols.

Meftech is an invite only event. - TradeArabia News Service