DATA SECURITY PAYMENTS SOLUTIONS
Defining the Future of Innovative Payment Solutions in Middle East – Lessons from Asia Rajashekara V Maiya Vice President and Head, Business Consulting Group, Infosys Finacle, talks with MEA Finance about the opportunities and challenges for banks to drive innovations in payments in the Middle East region, taking inspiration from some developments in other Asian economies such as India and China
D
escribe what makes payments such fertile ground for innovation in Middle East banking.
Globally, the total value of digital payment transactions is projected to touch US$ 7.86 tn 2022 and grow at a CAGR of 10.88% to reach over US$10.7 tn by 2025. With the Middle East being one of the biggest and most stable trading hubs connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia, the number of payment transactions is bound to grow in this region. The Expat community in the Middle East is one the largest in the world. For instance, Dubai is said to have people from 120 nationalities. These huge expat
50
communities regularly send money back to their respective home countries. In addition to Dubai, we’re seeing infrastructure investments in emerging financial hubs such as Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh. The hubs are bound to attract considerable investment and participation. At the same time, we’re seeing the growth of smart cities or cognitive cities that incorporate smart finance, smart payments, smart remittances, smart manufacturing, smart trading and more, which require a digital impetus. These cities will also attract more talent and a digitally capable workforce that will then drive the transformation of cash-based economies into digital economies.
Banking and Finance news in the MEA market
Rajashekara V Maiya, Vice President and Head, Business Consulting Group, Infosys Finacle
Together, all these factors will build considerable expectations around payment and remittance innovations to make them faster, cheaper and more transparent. To enable these, banks in the Middle East must move away from the traditional hub and spoke transaction models to distributed, network-based transactions based on distributed ledger technologies. This will be true for both domestic and international transactions.
