Keeping Ahead of the Competition in the Changing Payments Environment

14 September 2023
Ritz Carlton JBR, Dubai, United Arab Emirates


  • img-responsive 300+ Regional Banking, Finance, Payments Providers, Fintech and Technology Leaders, Standardisation Organisations, Regulators, Financial Trade Associations
  • img-responsive 30+ Thought Leaders, Market Makers and Experts
  • img-responsive 7 In-depth & lively sessions on the current state & the future of Payments
  • img-responsive 6 Hours of Peer Interaction and Networking
  • img-responsive 1 Awards Winners Presentation
    Ceremony

Overview

Activity around payments across our region has been fast and energetic in recent years and is set to remain the same for some time to come.

Digitisation and technology, regulators and governments, standardisation and competition, fintechs and non-financial institutions, global circumstances and consumer demand have all, individually or collectively been pushing the rate at which payments are evolving.

We saw that our region has been largely resilient to the numerous challenges currently facing the world, with many local economies coping better with the stresses than many of their international counterparts. This has meant that in the development of payments, there have been fewer brakes on the wheels speeding along the payments rails, helping the region keep pace with, even pull alongside other world centres.

Likewise, the region’s banking and finance sectors performed healthily, even robustly, helping to boost them purposefully toward their digitisation and technologically supported destinies.

Nearly the whole region is set up and primed for innovation. Key economies in the region are enacting policies and providing incentives to encourage the adoption of technology. This is clearly evident in the banking and finance sectors of the region, where we appear to be experiencing an era of growth for the technology companies servicing these sectors.

As all generations of clients and customers become increasingly familiar with new techniques, the beneficial conveniences and the more flexible options that digitisation brings them, this era of growth looks set continue.

MEA Finance Leaders in Payments Conference and Awards 2023 will gather regional leaders in Banking and Finance, Technology and Fintechs, Regulators and Standardisation Organisations in a series of lively and highly topical panel debates. The Conference discussions will focus upon the evolution of payments in the region, the changes technology can bring, as well as the trends that are leading them and the shape of the tasks ahead needed to establish effective, efficient and safe payments systems. The innovation and prestigious efforts of the banks, financial institutions, payments providers and technology suppliers have put into making the region’s payments systems the envy of the world will be spotlighted and acknowledged following the conference at the 2023 MEA Finance Leaders in Payments Awards.

Agenda

Thursday, 14 September 2023

There is much activity across the region at this time concerning the regulation and the standardisation of payments. Do regulations and standardisation act as catalysts for developing payments technology or are the innovations coming from fintech’s and vendors pushing the regulators and payments organisations to adapt to the marketplace? Is it one or the other of these factors, or are both sides consciously working together to create the payments ecosystem we will soon inhabit, and how might CBDC’s fit into the payment’s equations and to what end?

Can a focus on faster payments enable or enhance your chances of achieving these goals? For example, could faster loans funding build greater earnings from interest over a financial year? Either way, is it not a brutal reality that Real Time Payments will eventually be standard and those that do not get on board soon, will be left behind to deal with the consequences of hesitation?

Many banks are moving payments functions to The Cloud as part of their payments growth strategy, but are they going all the way to adopt cloud computing for full payment processing? Will banks ever replace current payment processing with a completely cloud-native version? In payments terms, what opportunities, benefits and advantages does the cloud specifically offer to FI’s and how can cloud-native payment platforms face challenges such as security, compliance, outages and demands for speedy performance?

At the time of this discussion, ISO 20022 will have been available for processing for six-months, remodeling, maybe even rejuvenating cross-border payments. This panel will review these first six months in the new ISO 20022 world we now inhabit, to assess whether there has been any immediate impact, if signs or patterns are emerging pointing to a new economic environment resulting from implementation, or if it is pretty much business as usual, just a little less bumpy than before.

What are the opportunities to monetise Real Time payments for ROIs that noticeably add to margins? Can this be done while also remaining cognisant that regulators will likely pressure banks to tighten management of third-party partnerships with fintechs and payments companies, and de-risk to avoid possible banking calamities, thus increasing the costs of compliance for financial institutions?

There is much talk about how RTP, ISO20022, IPP, The Cloud etc., will reduce pain-points and bring quicker and smoother experiences for your bank’s customers and clients, but are the end user businesses and customers actually going to care? Do they notice differentiation between financial institutions offering RTP and those that do not? How can banks and their partner fintech and technology suppliers engage with customers to understand how they actually feel, what they might want next, and how can they distinguish between long-term trends and short-term fads?

Categories

Click below to view individual award categories and submit nominations.

Awarded to the Payment Gateway business, clearly providing the best service across factors including payment options, reliability, security, market integration, pricing and currency support.
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Awarded to the business providing the most comprehensive opportunity for online companies to manage their payment processes in one place, from beginning to end.
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Nominees for this award will be companies in the region that have shown the most innovation in making quick clearance and settlement of payments a reality, using underlying payments rails.
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Winning this award will be a bank or financial institution in the region that has shown market leading initiative in commissioning and implementing quick clearance and settlement of payments using new or underlying payments rails.
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Awarded to the provider of ancillary services for a real-time payments method that definitively shows the best provision of options beyond core payment processing and adding value to standard payments.
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Nominations for this award will be from business that, in addition to providing leading edge technology in payments has through their implementation also helped to advance their local payments environment.
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Nominations for this award will be from business that, in addition to providing leading edge technology in payments has through their implementation also helped to advance their local payments environment.
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The award will be presented to the financial institution, fintech or technology company that can show it has brought the best ease of process and delight to users of their payments systems or methods.
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The award will be presented to the financial institution, fintech or technology company that can show it has brought the best ease of process and delight to users of their payments systems or methods.
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Awarded to the technology provider that can demonstrate the best solutions and services for the provision of cross-border payments in the region.
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This award will go to the business or organisation that has been judged to have made the most significant contribution to the regional cross-border payments landscape in the recent past.
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Nominees in this category will demonstrate the best cloud-located services across the payment value chain including cost optimisation, improved scalability, high security, faster functionality roll-out and flexible pricing.
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The winner of this award will be users or providers of payments solutions that brought easier access for third party providers or enabled financial institutions to comply with the regulations and increase their services.
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This is awarded to the company or financial institution that best demonstrates both the specific intention and results in bringing all communities the opportunities to transact and create improved life options.
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Awarded to the bank or financial institution that commissioned and completed an instant payments technology implementation that enhanced the services offered to their clients and contributed to their wider banking technology development objectives and profitability.
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Awarded to the business that provided a payments technology implementation that enhanced the services offered to their clients’ markets but also, through the overall commission of their activities, contributed to the wider national payments and banking technology development objectives.
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This award goes remittance payments and over the counter foreign exchange services company providing the best access via a broad branch network, digital services, speed of service and readily available range of currencies, meeting the needs of the communities depending on these services.
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In the highly populated and diverse payments services space in the region, this award will go to the company or institution judged as having made the most successful and beneficial contribution to this sector.
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Nominations are welcome from companies, financial institutions, organisations, associations or individuals that, over the past year to eighteen months, can demonstratively define an innovation of note in the regional payments market.
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Nominations are welcome from companies, financial institutions, organisations, associations or individuals that, over the past year to eighteen months, can demonstratively define an innovation of note in the regional payments market.
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This award will be presented to the company that in the past twelve to eighteen months has shown the most original and dedicated focus in supplying technology that has offered the most potential or definitively improved the payments experience for the market.
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This award is presented to the individual that through their efforts has been assessed to have made the most noticeable contribution to the technological advancement of the regional payments sector.
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This award will be presented to the executive in a leading position that has worked through their career to guide and lead businesses through the ever-evolving digital payments landscape, keeping them at the forefront of their respective markets.
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This award is presented to the individual that through their efforts has been assessed to have made the most noticeable contribution to the advancement of service and management in the regional payments sector.
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Sponsors


PAYMENTS PARTNER

GOLD SPONSORS

SILVER SPONSOR

  • ASSOCIATION PARTNER

  •       
  • TRADE PARTNER

  • EXHIBITION PARTNER

  •       
  • SME PARTNER

FOR SPEAKING, SPONSORSHIP & EXHIBITION ENQUIRIES:
FOR SPEAKING & AGENDA ENQUIRIES:

Venue

Ritz-Carlton JBR, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

MEA Finance Leaders in Payments Conference & Awards 2023
14 September 2023
Ritz Carlton JBR,
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
CONTACT US
Contact No. +971 50 100 5488
Office 404, Building B, Al Saaha Offices, Old Town Island
Burj Khalifa District,
PO Box 487177
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
www.mea-finance.com