Tag Archives: emirates nbd

21 Aug 2017

The Emirates will Recognize Crypto Currencies as a Legal Payment Method, won’t they?

Japan has become the first in the world to recognize officially crypto currencies at the legislative level. In April this year, the government adopted a law on virtual currencies awarding bitcoins and other crypto-currencies the status of a payment method. In the days and weeks that followed, the major national industries have introduced Bitcoin as a payment method. Increasingly, at the time of the conference, over 300,000 stores in Japan will accept bitcoin payments adding billions to the national economy.

As a result, other governments have taken similar steps in this direction. Estonia, South Korea, Russia, Denmark and Canada are looking into ways of encouraging the adoption of Bitcoin on national and international levels.

Today, we also observe interest in crypto currencies in the Arab world. Being a source of emerging talents and companies, the UAE and the Middle East are sizing up an opportunity to adopt Bitcoin and Blockchain technologies. This opportunity lies not only in directly benefiting from increasing the size of the national economy but also in becoming a global leader in the industry with Blockchain and cryptocurrency friendly models and frameworks.

For the second year in a row, the crypto currencies as a legal payment method around the globe is among key talking points at the Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi. In 2017, Jörg von Minckwitz will speak at the conference discussing Japan’s adoption of Bitcoin and telling why the next country to do so will grow its economy. He will speak about the benefits reaped from such a move, and explain how the booming and disruptive crypto currency market can work with traditional banking for the benefit of governments and companies.

Jörg von Minckwitz is the CEO and co-founder of Bitwala – Europe’s leading crypto to local currency transfer service. Jörg’s role is to envision the new possibilities that Blockchain technology offers and to utilize it by developing new services for the financial sector. Jörg has over 6 years of experience in Blockchain and Cryptocurrency sectors. Prior to Bitwala, he founded Europe’s first Crypto Consulting, Crypto Incubator and first Crypto E-commerce shop. His work has been recognized and awarded with prizes by, among others, ICT Spring, Pioneers Festival and The German Innovation Prize. Previously, he spoke at Money 20/20, Paris Fintech Forum and Distribute Blockchain Conference.

Jörg von Minckwitz will appear at the Blockchain Conference in Abu Dhabi on December 7, 2017. To register for the conference, please visit bconference.org.

+442 03 239 96 70, [email protected]

12 Dec 2016

Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi 2016 Results

BLOCKCHAIN IS A DELICATE MATTER

The Future magazine has been a media partner of Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi. The conference has become a consolidation of visionary and strategic views on prospects for the segment development, expert presentations in the context of the infrastructural management of the blockchain ecosystem (regulation, legislation) and practical experience using real international cases.

Strategic View

If you google ‘blockchain’, you will get about 21 million hits in total, while IoT (Internet of Things) gives you about 90 million hits, VR (Virtual Reality) – 115 million hits, and a search query for ‘Donald Trump’ – over 400 million hits. A blockchain evangelist and IBM | Middle East representative Saqr Ereiqat has begun his presentation with this short demonstration of the blockchain penetration into the real world. During the introduction of the emerging industry, he has however noted that the modest statistics is not surprising, because the increased public interest in the topic of blockchain appeared only at the end of last year and at the beginning of this one. So, the awareness of this technology has not been significant yet even in the professional financial world.

According to various sources, however, today 80% of banks are exploring possibilities of the blockchain technology, and 78% of them believe that blockchain will acquire widespread use in five or six years. The greatest transformations in the next five or six years will occur in such segments as the consumer banking, payments & fund investments, wealth management, according to the PwC Global FinTech Survey 2016. As Gianfrancesco Martinico from PwC | Middle East has noted, 219 fintech companies related to blockchain have been registered as of today; 30 industries have become aware of valuable benefits from financial services based on blockchain; an amount of investments in the blockchain-fintech sector has been about $ 900 million.

Thus, even today we can observe an increased interest of leading financial players in the blockchain technology. For example, the French AXA Group has invested $ 55 million in the Canadian startup Blockstream located in Montreal. A Goldman Sachs has received the license for its own cryptocurrency SETLcoin. In parallel with the private investment projects, there is a trend of creating consortiums and associations like R3, Hyperledger and others.

“Companies are going to achieve more being together,” the speaker from PwC has noted.

Nuances of Government Regulation

At a time when a lot of hype surrounding the blockchain technology enters into a real business, a theme of the emerging industry regulation is becoming more actualized as well as the theme of fintech in general. One of the most interesting panels at Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi has been devoted to this issue, which is cared deeply about by the most developed fintech markets of the world and their financial regulators. Two presentations have been given within this panel – PwC | Middle East and Zayed University Abu Dhabi (please follow the link to watch a video about the university).

The first presentation delivered by Madhukar Shenoy from PwC | Middle East has demonstrated real cases from the experience of the UK, Singapore, Australia and Switzerland being systematized in a framework format. The key idea of the performance is as follows: a successful supervision involves an availability of a responsible regulatory institution with a clear strategy aimed at establishing transparent rules for business and security for the consumer; a creation of the regulatory practices on the basis of a mutual dialogue between the regulator and business (‘sandbox’ formats,  etc., which provide an opportunity to test business processes and find appropriate regulatory solutions); as well as technologically neutral position of the regulator, which is essential for building an effective regulatory practice.

The second presentation delivered by Christian Chamorro-Courtland from Zayed University Abu Dhabi has focused on what should be a subject of regulation and how to enhance the effectiveness of regulation. His presentation has featured the regulatory practices of the Crown Dependencies of the Isle of Man, the European Union and the American city of Ontario (CA). He has announced an idea of creating a regulatory field in the format of ‘bottom-up’ based on the business practice. This effectively means the establishment of rules of the game by the business itself (including being represented in the different jurisdictions and able to bring advanced ideas) and the development of self-regulatory approaches. The creation of a transnational regulatory field (joining efforts of regulators from different countries) becomes very important. The speaker has predicted a growing demand for the regulation in the field of the Internet, DLT organizations working with the blockchain technology and the market of crypto assets in the near future. In general, the presented international experience can be called universal milestones for the creation of a successful regulatory practice in any emerging fintech market.

Blockchain in Practice

The section of practical cases has several reports that are worth mentioning. Thus, Marina Reznik from Ubitquity LLC (Canada) has spoken about the practical application of the blockchain technology in the real estate sector.

The benefits include an equal and transparent access by all the parties to the whole variety of information (this is an impressive list of transactions and procedures related to the real estate), which greatly facilitates interaction and speed of execution of all business procedures.

Dominik Schiener from IOTA (Germany) has spoken about the prospects of integration of the Internet of things (IOT) and the blockchain technology.

For a start, there is a global data: in 2020, there will be 50 billion of interconnected devices worldwide. This concerns the issue of how to create scalable data clusters on the principles of smart decentralization (on the basis of blockchain technologies and smart contracts) by combining online and offline ecosystems, which will lead to the formation of the Economy of Things and make a variety of resources more accessible and improve the quality of life.

This panel has also featured a case of the digital bank based on blockchain (Hashcoins) and a case related to the increased transparency of green investments in the solar energy (SunExchange, South Africa & SolcryptoJV, Japan).

For example, SunExchange project represents a p2p micro finance platform based on blockchain. This crowdfunding platform allows investing the minimum capital subject to high transparency of assets, enabling companies and natural persons to invest sums of $ 10 in the distributed solar energy projects around the world, according to Cambridge Abe from SunExchange. The project has been launched in South Africa, where there is a lot of solar potential and growing demand for the electric power.

Conclusion

Summarizing the results of the conference, we would like to share several conclusions. The first one is that the scope of blockchain technology application can be found everywhere; we just need to proceed from the specificity of a given geographical area and needs of the economy and consumers. The second conclusion follows from an exclusive interview with the blockchain evangelist from IBM | Middle East for the Future magazine (to be published in full in the December issue), which has grown from Q&A format into an interesting discussion. Thus, in five or six years our world will be a global public blockchain ecosystem consisting of a number of private blockchain ecosystems (with sectoral or functional specificity). This global ecosystem will be completely digital; however, it will be largely connected with the offline world through the Internet of Things. And if you as a business unit or an individual are not there, it will mean that you are absent on a new ‘world map’, which will be entirely digital by that time. And the key aspect in the creation of a global ‘world map’ and a global blockchain space is an issue of cross-border and cross-sectoral cooperation.

The Future magazine would like to thank the organizers of Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi for the opportunity to give coverage to the exclusive content.

22 Nov 2016

Unique presentation & workshop: How to Create a Blockchain Bank using Blockchain

Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi is coming closer! Only two weeks are left before the main FinTech event in the UAE. Its organizers still have fire to make this conference truly interesting and worth visiting.

We are glad to offer you a unique presentation & workshop: How to Create a Blockchain Bank using Blockchain.

General partners of Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi have prepared something really interesting.

Edgar Bers, HashCoins Partner Relations Manager, will uncover details of the upcoming next-generation crypto financial ecosystem and provide crucial information on the exclusive participation options in the investment project to be implemented in Q1 of 2017.

The second speaker Vitali Pavlov, HashCoins Senior Project Manager, will talk about the current financial system’s faults and the planned ICO aimed at funding an entire array of blockchain engaged financial service projects by HashCoins.

If you are interested, you still have a chance to visit our event!

The second great news for our delegates is an appearance of our new financial panel moderator. Zubair Ahmed is the Senior Vice President, Head of IT & Business Innovation at Emirates Islamic. Previous to this role, Zubair spent nearly 2 decades in challenging leadership roles at the heart of the finance technology industry. A Harvard Alumni with 24+ years of IT & financial industry experience, he enjoys being customer facing and engaging businesses in strategic use of technology. Excelling in enterprise transformation, he has led and produced compelling results in creating business innovation at the grass-roots of the organization. Zubair is the author of the book “Power to Kids” that serves as a guide in ‘applying quality & management principles to parenting’. He is also actively involved with a number of non-profit causes across the region. As an ardent speaker / panelist and a life coach, Zubair is regularly featured in numerous conferences around the world.

We cordially invite you to spend an exciting day with us on this truly innovative and disruptive new technology- Blockchain.

07 Nov 2016

Conference agenda includes 5 panels and representatives from 12 countries

Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi, the main FinTech event in the Middle East region, will be held on December 8 at Marriott Downtown Abu Dhabi. This activity promises to be multinational, with representatives from 12 countries to share their views on the future of Blockchain technology.

We are glad to announce that the conference agenda includes 5 panels, which are as follows:

Intro Panel:

  • Saqr M. Ereiqat (IBM Middle East) – “Your introduction to Blockchain”
  • Steve Plimsoll (PwC Middle East) – “The future of audit/accounting 2016 version”
  • Yves-Laurent Kayan (Coinplus) – “Investment in Blockchain: what is worth to know”
  • Victor Kiriakos (Flat6Labs) – “Blockchain start-ups on the UAE Map”

Finances and Banking:

  • Rajashekara V. Maiya (Emirates NBD & Infosys Finacle) – “Case study: Blockchain network for Emirates NBD”
  • Loretta Joseph (Sydney Stock Exchange Limited) – “How to build a blockchain settlement system”
  • George Basiladze (Cryptopay) – “Bitcoin as a settlement mechanism for card industry”
  • Cecil O’Brien Owens (Total Technologies and Solutions FZ-LLC) – “Blockchain-based e-voting system”
  • Hilal Hussein (IDB Group) – “Secure payment system using cryptography, and Blockchain technology”

Regulation:

  • Madhukar Shenoy (PwC Middle East) – the topic will be announced soon
  • Christian Chamorro-Courtland (Zayed University Abu Dhabi) – “Law enforcement and regulation”

Real Case Studies:

  • Pavlo Tanasyuk (Blockverify.io) – “Oil Freight Blockchain Applications”
  • Marina Reznik (Ubitquity LLC) – “Blockchain technology for real estate transactions”
  • Dominik Schiener (IOTA) – “IOTA-ledger of things”

Chain of Solar

  • Luke Johnson (SolCryptoJV) and Abe Cambridge (SunExchange) – “Overview of the use of Blockchain Technology in the solar industry”

+ Unique presentation of new product to be launched.

Each panel will be moderated by experts, who are skilled and proficient in each topic; they will make the conference day full of pithy discussions and provocative questions.

The conference speakers will talk about new technological solutions, security and privacy issues, collaborations and new products. They will share their practical cases and specific examples demonstrating operation of Blockchain in the best possible way. You will learn how to use Blockchain in your own business and earn more than others.

Join us, if you haven’t done it yet!

25 Oct 2016

Is Blockchain really secure? A cryptographic perspective at Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi

December 8 Abu Dhabi will host the largest blockchain business conference – Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi 2016. The discussed issues include Cryptography and Information Security topic.

The presentation of Hilal Hussein, Senior Solutions Development Specialist, Information Security Expert and Cryptographer, will be dedicated to this topic. Mr Hilal will thoroughly review “Are Blockchain-based Payments Safer than EMV Chip Based Cards: A security analysis of whole transaction lifecycle?” topic.

Within the conference, he will answer the most anticipated and hot issues about security using Blockchain, is it really so secure as everybody talking about.

Hilal Hussein  – Public Speaker, Researcher, and Senior Information Solutions Specialist at the IRTI, a member of IDBG, an international financial institution . Prior to joining IRTI/IDBG, he was a Senior Information Security Consultant at the National Commercial Bank, KSA. He got his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science (focus on Cryptography) from Blaise Pascal University, France. Two patents in Cryptography filed with the United States – USPTO, and several dozen articles on security and cryptography published in international journals and conferences. His research interests include Banking/Financial Security and Cryptography, Blockchain Technology, Securing the Internet of Things (IoTs) and the Cloud-based computation, Side Channel Attacks and Countermeasures, Smart card, Radio-frequency identification, and Wireless Sensor Networks.

You will have a unique opportunity to communicate with high level crypto-security specialist only visiting the main Fintech event of this December- Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi. Don’t miss your chance, buy ticket now here: http://bconference.org/pricing/

20 Oct 2016

Infosys Finacle became silver sponsor of Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi

Have you already heard the newsbreak about First Pilot Blockchain Network that was launched by Infosys Finacle for Emirates NBD and ICICI Bank?

Let us tell you – Emirates NBD is the first in UAE and ICICI Bank is the first bank in India who launched their pilot blockchain-based network for international remittances and trade finance.

There are 2 good news: Infosys Finacle became Silver Sponsor of the Conference and Rajashekara V. Maiya – Associate Vice President and Head-Finacle Product Strategy at Infosys will speak at the Conference to share their unique in the Middle East experience how they launched this pilot project.

Rajashekara Maiya is responsible for charting the product strategy of Finacle, the flagship banking solution of Infosys. This role includes responsibility for, defining the detailed product roadmap, Strategic acquisition & alliance partner identification & management, client engagement and representation of the company with external stakeholders such as analysts and media.

Maiya specialises in risk management, regulations and compliance and has been quoted on these and other topics in publications such as Forbes, The Banker, Banking Technology and the Economic Times. He is also visiting faculty to many universities, and speaks regularly at SIBOS, Asian Banker, MEED and others. He is on the expert panel of the McKinsey Quarterly, a member of the XBRL Abstract Modelling Task Force (AMTF) Group and is an Associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He holds patents and pending patent granting in areas such as partner portals, delivery channels, offline banking and customer experience. Prior to joining Infosys in 1997 Maiya was an audit manager within an accountancy practice. He holds a master’s degree in commerce, specialising in banking, costing and taxation.

Short info: Finacle is the industry-leading universal banking solution from EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys. The solution helps financial institutions develop deeper connections with stakeholders, power continuous innovation and accelerate growth in the digital world. Today, Finacle is the choice of banks across 94 countries and serves over 848 million customers – estimated to be nearly 16.5 percent of the world’s adult banked population.

Finacle solutions address the core banking, e-banking, mobile banking, CRM, payments, treasury, origination, liquidity management, Islamic banking, wealth management, and analytics needs of financial institutions worldwide. Assessment of the top 1000 world banks reveals that banks powered by Finacle enjoy 50 percent higher returns on assets, 30 percent higher returns on capital, and 8.1 percent points lesser costs to income than others.

At Blockchain Conference Abu Dhabi you will have an opportunity to communicate with representatives of Infosys Finacle, discuss trends and prospects of blockchain technology in the world and negotiate on further business cooperation. Don’t miss your chance, register here: http://bconference.org/pricing/