Financial Technology

From a slow start, innovative fintech could shake up finance in the GCC

In the West, governments play the role of facilitator in terms of policy and regulation, and in providing the right environment for innovation to flourish, leaving it to the private sector to come up with solutions. However, in the GCC, with regulations lagging in most sectors and the private sector wary of joining in, governments play a more central role in fostering innovation. Still, fintech has begun to bubble up across the region, in payment systems (CashU), peer-to-peer lending (Beehive),...