Qatar offers vast opportunities for global fintechs

Qatar offers great opportunities for international fintech companies, especially in light of the projected expenditures allocated for information and communications technology, which could reach $9bn by 2024, according to Minister of Commerce and Industry HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Hamad bin Qassim al-Thani.
“The Islamic fintech market in Qatar was estimated at $850mn in 2020, and is expected to grow to $2bn in 2025,” he told the 8th Doha Islamic Finance Conference, entitled ‘Digital FinTech and Decentralisation’, organised by Bait Al-Mashura Financial Consulting Company.

The growth comes within the framework of the country’s approach to create an innovation environment, through putting in place the National FinTech Strategy, in addition to the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) programmes, especially the ‘Tech Talk’ series, and the QFC Tech Circle, in addition to launching the Qatar FinTech Hub in 2020.

Finding that the pace of digital transformation in countries around the world has seen an unprecedented acceleration during the Covid-19, he said the governments moved to accelerate the adoption of technological tools to curb the pandemic’s repercussions, and maintain business in various vital sectors in a way that supports the balance and stability of their financial and economic systems.

Highlighting the growing process of Islamic finance in Qatar, and the continuous efforts to develop it; the minister said the country’s Islamic finance assets amounted to QR528bn, of which Islamic banks accounted for about 86%.

According to the International Monetary Fund’s definition of major Islamic financial markets, Qatar has been among the top ten countries in the world in the Islamic finance index, over the past ten years, he said.

“The Islamic banking sector today represents a key pillar of the financial sector in Qatar,” HE Sheikh Mohamed said.

Sheikh Dr Khalid bin Mohamed bin Ghanem al-Thani, Director General of the General Department of Endowments at the Ministry of Endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic Affairs, highlighted the critical importance of digital transformation in the endowment field, so as to develop its mechanisms and products.

“This approach has gone hand-in-hand with the General Department of Endowments’ future vision, knowing that the department is currently launching the website and a new application for endowments,” he said.

Dr Osama Qais al-Duraei, vice chairman of the organising committee, managing director and chief executive of Bait al-Mashura Finance Consultations, said the topics of the Doha Islamic Finance conference were carefully selected according to a forward-looking vision for the future of Islamic finance in an accelerating and transformative time at all economic levels.

The conference addressed four main themes, featuring interventions by a group of scholars and experts in the field of Islamic economics and finance.