Finastra Forum Middle East and Africa to explore emerging trends in financial services

Finastra Forum Middle East and Africa returns to the UAE on March 28. The event brings together a community of innovators and builders to discuss the future of finance and the latest trends like Banking as a Service (BaaS), Cloudification, and Environmental Social Governance (ESG) for larger financial organizations in the Middle East and Africa.

Attendees of Finastra Forum will join financial services executives, technology innovators, and industry thought leaders to discuss, debate, and learn. The event will commence with an opening address from Wissam Khoury, Head of International and Serge Tohme, Managing Director – Middle East & Africa at Finastra. The keynote speaker will be Eric Duffaut, President and Global Head of Customer Operations at Finastra, who will shed light on recent changes in financial services and how financial institutions can leverage this to ignite growth. In addition, Angus Ross, Chief Revenue Officer, Banking as a Service at Finastra, will offer insights on BaaS and how financial institutions can benefit from its adoption.

According to Finastra’s last State of the Nation Survey, more than one-third of banking executive respondents in the UAE said their organization has either started the process of adopting open APIs (22.7%) or has already done so (11.8%). Almost half (49.6%) said their organization is currently considering the adoption of APIs to enable Open Banking.

Speaking about the event, Serge Tohme said, “Financial services has undergone a digital and technological transformation. This process has accelerated as the pandemic forced financial institutions to rapidly digitalize their offerings. The next period of evolution in financial services in MEA will be characterised by deep collaboration and institutions embracing open APIs, Open Banking and BaaS. Finastra Forum offers industry experts the perfect platform to share experiences and gain new insights into digital transformation and the trends that will impact financial providers worldwide.”