Doha: Qatar’s demographics size makes the nation an ideal test-bed for developing a robust business-to-business (B2B) FinTech market, and unlocking this potential requires a human capital strategy aligned with the country’s National Vision 2030, a global FinTech leader has said.
Qatar’s FinTech industry has been witnessing a surge in the number of startup companies exploring the growing opportunities available in the local market. The Qatar FinTech Hub, which is co-founded by the Qatar
Development Bank, has just recently announced it has attracted over 750 applications from early stage and mature FinTechs in Qatar and 72 other countries to join its incubator and accelerator programmes which are both set to start in October. Qatar’s key advantage as a financial services hub is its human captital as a catalyst. This is a key advantage the country holds, Janos Barberis has told The Peninsula.
Barberis, who is recognised as a Top-35 global FinTech leader, is also the Co-Founder of SuperCharger Ventures, which has been been recognised as ‘Asia’s #1 FinTech accelerator’. He has also been on the FinTech board of the World Economic Forum and Securities and Futures Commission and the Head of Entrepreneurship at the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE).
In a SuperCharger report on Qatar’s first-mover advantages to become the region’s FinTech hub and the country’s ecosystem strength, Barberis highlighted the government-backed funding initiatives to support local startups and SMEs, as well as the investments made in the education sector to develop the country’s FinTech capacity.
“The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) has issued its second strategy document for 2017-2022 where FinTech applies to each of the 5 pillars of the strategy. Recent reforms, including a new credit scoring bureau and introduction of a sandbox, indicates pro-active regulatory environment. Balancing innovation and stability in financial markets remains a core focus of QCB and opens an opportunity for better supervision via RegTech,” he added.
Barberis also reiterated the importance of building opportunity awareness and common language across stakeholders to ensure the success of Qatar’s FinTech ecosystem.
He added that, internationally, Qatar is a leading transport and media hub. And the country can leverage this differentiator and position itself as a strategic global platform for industry problem statements. “This would reinforce Qatar’s visibility on the international stage and cement relations with industry and regulators from across the world,” he added.
Speaking about the challenges in the region, Barberis noted that currently, about two thirds of C-level executives in the GCC fail to see the reasons or methodology to work with startups. If unaddressed, this represents the most obvious risk impacting success metrics of the ecosystem, he said. “Thus, the market would benefit from more transparency in terms of information about opportunities, stakeholders and shared knowledge,” he added.
Barberis also reiterated that a FinTech ecosystem’s effectiveness depends on a series of factors including talent availability, forward thinking regulators, network access, investor sophistication, government support, consumer demand, regional opportunities and incubator and accelerator availability.
According to industry reports, the 2020s are going to be an exciting time to be building and investing in B2B FinTech. Globally, the number of B2B FinTechs that will be public in 10 years’ time will triple, generating well over $1 trillion in total aggregate value, a Forbes report said.
