Janos Barberis
Qatar has significant ‘first-mover advantages’ to emerge as a financial technology (FinTech) leader in the region, according to a global FinTech leader.
Janos Barberis, a Millennial in FinTech and recognised as a Top-35 global FinTech leader said that one of Qatar’s advantages towards becoming a regional FinTech hub is the country’s huge investments in education sector.
Barberis, who has previously developed FinTech ecosystems in Hong Kong and Malaysia, was also on the FinTech board of the World Economic Forum and Securities and Futures Commission. The 49 startups across his accelerator cohorts have also raised over $500m and are regularly listed as leading fintech companies, globally. In the last four years, Barberis has also trained over 100,000 people through his online courses, published books, and academic papers on FinTech and RegTech.
Addressing the just-concluded New Age Banking Summit in Doha,Barberis noted the Qatari government has already invested over QR2m for the next three years to help develop the country’s FinTech capacity, in collaboration with global leading universities.
“The people behind this initiative are a mixed of academics from Qatar University, Hong Kong University, The University of New South Wales, and Curtin University, who are number one in the world on the topic of regulation, block chain, artificial intelligence, security, and sustainable finance. The government has financed these experts to research and develop those capacities. And I think this is where Qatar’s opportunity very much lies. Develop the human capital of the country and then continue growing it with financial institutions,” he added.
Barberis, citing a Cambridge University study, said Qatar’s other ‘first-mover advantages’ include a regional centre of excellence for smart regulation, which sets up standards for market supervision which can be implemented locally and exported in the region; being a gateway to the FinTech world, which leverages the natural hub advantage of Qatar to increase market opportunity size by connecting it to global startups and opportunities; and having universal reach of local expertise which uses the national agenda of developing human capital and scaling it internationally via the creation of reference courses in FinTech.
In his presentation, Barberis went on to benchmark Qatar with other leading FinTech hubs in the world, including London, Hong Kong, and Singapore. He said the fintech ecosystem in Hong Kong started only six years ago with 34 people, and now has grown into a dynamic environment of over 400 different stakeholders from startups, financial institutions, to investors, government, and academia in 2019.
“But for this to happen you need a catalyst. And in the context of Qatar, human capital would be the best catalyst. If you look at Qatar, here is where Qatar’s advantage is, as a financial services hub. If you were to compare Qatar to Singapore, or to London, they are not the same, which is to be expected. But what is not to be expected is the leadership Qatar already has in academia. Education City is a marvel of what focused government can do by bringing some of the best universities to develop training capacity at the IT level all the way to the management level,” he added.
Speaking about the ecosystem pillars which Qatar can rely on to achieve its National Vision 2030, he said the Qatar Development Bank (QDB) as a FinTech gateway will allow coordination between public and private sector stakeholders. He added: “Banks are the biggest transformation capacity of any country. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are also a very big driver of transformation because they employ people and drive the economy, but they need digitisation”.
