Qatar has taken initiatives and efforts with a potential to attract key fintech companies from across the world firms to choose the country as their ladder to the global market, said an expert.
“Qatar has ambition, efforts and there is the national Fintech strategy that was developed by Qatar Central Bank. Also the Fintech hub that QFC is hosting in collaboration with QDB and Qatar Central Bank and these initiatives have the potential to attract key Fintech companies to start their projects in Qatar,” said Dr Dalal Aassouli , Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of the Master of Science Program in Islamic Finance at College of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University.
“Islamic Fintech, perhaps, is one of the fastest developing segments globally in the industry now. So, one of the leading areas in terms of Islamic Fintech innovations and development is the ASEAN countries followed by the Middle-East,” she added.
The Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of the Islamic Fintech market size in Qatar is projected at 19.6 percent with a plan to reach $2bn by 2025, says the Global Islamic Fintech Report 2021.
Fintech industry is a key component of Qatar’s knowledge-based economy objective and Qatar Central Bank’s (QCB) National Fintech Strategy provides a framework for initiatives that enable the local startup sector and create a favourable ecosystem to attract international Fintech.
QCB has partnered with Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and QFC to rollout Qatar FinTech Hub (QFTH) to stimulate the sector and rise to meet the evolving needs of the country. QFTH is dedicated to offer Qatar’s first ever specialized Incubator and Accelerator Programs, which target entrepreneurs with innovative and cutting-edge FinTech ideas.
Aassouli’s College of Islamic Studies was recently host of a workshop on the connection between Islamic finance and green finance, exploring ways to develop Islamic Green Finance, particularly in Qatar.
“We see couple of trends internationally when it comes to Green Finance and Islamic Green Finance. We see the growth of government led initiatives, we see the growth of sustainable and responsible investing, and more impact assessment because they want to see where their money is allocated,” she said.
According to Aassouli, the private sector has important role in the field of green finance, global mobilization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate mitigation.
“For the SDGs financing, we have about $2.5 trillion financing gap to mitigate and this is why the role of the private sector is extremely important to mitigate this gap. One of the key innovative products is basically green bonds and following that green Sukuk since 2017,” she added.
Source The Peninsula