UAE-based Xpress Money pushes for digital currency and cashless payment solutions
Summary
However, Banerjee pointed out that bitcoin , which is a specific type of cryptocurrency , has yet to gain tremendous traction at institutional level in the region, although there are reports of some local businesses accepting the currency.“In fact, earlier this year, the UAE Central Bank explicitly clarified that virtual currencies such as bitcoin are not illegal, paving the way for future adoption and innovation, which is largely being driven by fintech [financial technology],” she said.As a company playing in the financial services space, Xpress Money is excited about the security and transparency possibilities created by the blockchain technology , where ledgers leave a clear trail, said Banerjee.Despite this, Banerjee said company is seeing tremendous scope for partnerships where fintech firms take financial services to new audiences through really intuitive platforms, and the conventional provider then steps in to actually process the transaction.“In the Middle East, headlines are often grabbed by novel apps and platforms, but fintech firms are doing very advanced work on bridging the analytics gap and helping conventional financial providers make sense of the data they collect.”