ADGM announces launch of first FinTech innovation centre

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the International Financial Centre in Abu Dhabi, announced two major initiatives — the launch of the ADGM FinTech Innovation Centre and its global partnership with world’s largest startup accelerator Plug and Play — at its inaugural FinTech Abu Dhabi Summit. These two FinTech initiatives aim to support greater financial innovation, cultivate FinTech talents, foster closer industry collaboration and facilitate more cross-border investment opportunities to bolster the development and growth of financial services in Abu Dhabi and the region. FinTech Abu Dhabi Summit, which is under the patronage of HH Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, successfully with participation from 500 global FinTech leaders, innovators, financial regulators, decision-makers and industry trend-setters. The new FinTech Initiatives are:

FINTECH INNOVATION
CENTRE BY H1 2018
ADGM will launch the Innovation Centre — a physical hub where FinTech communities can come together to foster an interactive, collaborative and vibrant ecosystem for innovation to take root in Abu Dhabi and the region. It will include a co-working space for FinTech startups to meet with financial institutions, investors and potential partners, as well as state-of-the-art facilities for networking and events. At its core, the Innovation Centre will feature a startup acceleration programme to attract and nurture FinTech entrepreneurs and companies from all over the world to develop and deploy innovative solutions in the region. The Centre will also be home to participants of the Regulatory Laboratory (RegLab) — ADGM’s regulatory sandbox that allow companies to live-test innovative Fintech products in collaboration with the regulator. ADGM FinTech Innovation Centre welcomes startups focusing on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, DLTs, Biometrics, E-Payments, RegTech and more that shape and transform financial services in the years to come.
STARTUP ACCELERATOR PARTNERSHIP
ADGM and Plug and Play, the world’s largest startup accelerator based in Silicon Valley, signed a new partnership to launch a startup acceleration programme in Abu Dhabi, focused on FinTech. The Programme will be housed within the ADGM FinTech Innovation Centre.
Through the Programme, ADGM will play a central bridging role of working with partner banks and financial institutions to identify the pipeline of strategic needs and challenges of the financial sector in the region, source for the most promising solutions from global innovators, and assure the deployment of the solutions with participating financial, technological and academic institutions.

UniCredit opens ADGM branch
Abu Dhabi / WAM

UniCredit announced the opening of a new Corporate and Investment Banking, CIB, branch in Abu Dhabi. The branch will support more enhancement of cross-border business generation and expand the bank’s international
offerings for its corporate clients and financial institutions. UniCredit has chosen the Abu Dhabi Global Market, the region’s leading financial free zone, as a base for its new operation.
The new branch, which upgrades the local representative office which was first established in 2001, will act as a hub for the Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, as well as the wider Middle East and Africa, MEA, region, delivering increased support to UniCredit’s European clients, while also supporting local clients including regional multinationals, local financial institutions and
sovereign wealth funds.
UniCredit’s new offering will build on the well-established business with MEA counterparties, whom the bank has supported on transactions valued in the region of 6.5 billion Euros in 2016.
The GCC accounts for approximately six percent of total EU trade and is the fifth largest export market for the EU.