I finally decided to transform a previously private letter, originally shared with my network of senior bankers, strategy consultants, and SI executives, into a public blog. Beyond that, given my ongoing role as a senior external advisor to two consulting firms, I'm eager to assist sponsors and executives of a few deserving and promising FinTech and banking projects seeking guidance.

​

My long-time CTO and I aim to address several gaps in the Middle East's banking, FinTech, and digital banking landscape. While the region boasts exceptional banks like Al Rajhi for retail and F.A.B. for wholesale, it offers abundant opportunities for new entrants and specialized business models, perhaps even more so than in Western Europe. This is due, in part, to the prevalent universal banking model, which can hinder the focus and investment required for each sub-sector. On occasions, we team up and may bring in needed outside expertise, such as cyber, software engineering or regulatory, to better deliver for our clients.

​

A significant challenge I've observed in this region is the lack of a clear strategic direction for new digital banking and FinTech ventures. Contrary to popular belief, banks are not antiquated; they're simply unfocused. They are also constrained by more stringent regulatory requirements than EMI or RPS entities. Priority 1 for any well-funded financial venture (and very ventures have conducted such thorough market analysis) is to do serious market analysis, qualitative and quantitative and with focus group testing, in order to define clearly their strategic North Star and understand the problem the venture want to solve. Not using any single person's opinion of what the market needs, but using data in order to establish what the market needs. The cost of such analysis is only a fraction of the typical build cost, and it will save a lot of money down the road.

​​

Another issue is the insufficient understanding of regional regulatory frameworks. These frameworks are far more complex and evolving than just believing all the rules and requirements are available from the Central Bank. They include such topics (to name a few) as evolving data residency and security frameworks, discretionary judgements by the regulator on which new outsourcing solution is acceptable and which won't be. Cloud-based banking being so new globally and in the region, beware any tech provider or SI claiming they have built the same many times already. Such issues has led to years-long delays, and counting, as exemplified by the ongoing challenges faced by digital banking ventures in Saudi Arabia (a topic I've previously addressed and will continue to explore). In some cases, the decision by some sponsors to bring in wallet executives without a prior experience in the region and without a prior experience as senior bankers, to lead new digital-only banks has resulted in catastrophic errors, particularly in areas like cloud storage or core banking platform selection. In truth, it is important that financial ventures sponsors spend the time required to understand the differences between wildly different licensing frameworks such as commercial banking versus EMI / RPS and hire their leadership team accordingly.

​

Thirdly, and even though I have very strong relationships with some exceptional strategy consultants, let me say outright that a lot of the advice banks are generally getting from top consulting firms is more or less useless and, in my career, I have often been frustrated by how clueless those consultants can sometimes be.