The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) is considering introducing regulations on fintech and startups that focus on fintech are invited to set up their offices in Bahrain and use it as a base to serve the entire GCC and the Middle East region, a financial expert stated.

Khalid Hamad, Chairman of the Waqf Fund and Executive Director Banking Supervision during Leadership Grooming Programme, addressed a group of senior CBB officials and participants including Associate Dean of Ivey Business School Dr. Chris Chan on the banks plan for fintech regulations, the release stated.

During the event, Dr. Chris Chan, Associate Dean of Canada-based Ivey Business School shared some of the key findings of the institution that recently researched in the space of digital banking and fintech. Some of the results include new trends unleashed by fintech such as digital payments, crowdfunding (debt and equity), Robo-advisory and blockchain; investment in private fintech companies that increased ten times in the past five years; China is found to be the largest peer-to-peer lending market in the world (US$ 69 billion vs. US at US$ 17 billion); among others.

“Fintech is the future of finance; over 1,000 companies with US$ 105 billion in funding and US$ 870 billion in market capitalization are engaged in Fintech activities globally,” Dr. Chan stated. “Start-up companies are taking market share from large incumbent banks, forcing them to embrace Fintech or see their profits erode. We believe soon banks everywhere will be facing their ‘Uber moment’.”