In an interview with the Forbes Middle East, David Parker, the Executive Director of Business Development and Financial Services of the Bahrain Economic Development Board, talked about the Kingdom’s future as a FinTech hub and home of startup and innovative ventures.
Over the past 40 years, Bahrain has established itself as a modern financial hub. Nowadays, it is also well-positioned as a leading regional FinTech hub. Parker highlighted the efforts the government has been done in the past few years to amend the regulatory requirements which prevented more firms from entering the market.
For instance, the Central Bank of Bahrain launched a regulator sandbox earlier this summer. It allows young tech companies to experiment with their services before presenting their products officially to the public. Parker added that the regulatory sandbox was part of a more significant government initiative to nurture a healthy startup ecosystem along with ”Startup Bahrain.” Next to that, many new accelerators and startup incubators appeared on the Bahraini FinTech scene. For example, Amazon Web Services recently backed up the region’s first cloud accelerator, operated by C5. In addition to that, the government in Manama also invests in hosting some high profile FinTech events such as Euromoney GCC Financial Forum.
The Central Bank of Bahrain also added to the joint efforts by introducing a Payment Service Provider license to encourage the development of new payment solutions. Earlier this year, the bank also issued numerous directives regulating crowdfunding for Shariah-compliant and non-Shariah compliant platforms, added Parker. Furthermore, the bank also launched a national e-wallet.
Parker also reaffirmed government’s plans to keep attracting foreign investments in the Kingdom. He pointed out Bahrain was one of the few countries in the GCC region which allowed 100% foreign ownership of the companies in most sectors. Along with the continually improving regulatory framework, Bahrain also offered high qualified workforce, a competitive retail market for office spaces and unparalleled access to the biggest market in the region – Saudi Arabia.
Talking about the future, Parker said that among others, Bahrain would also keep investing in Islamic finance and blockchain.
You can read the whole interview here.