Dr Dalal Aassouli, Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of the Master of Science Program in Islamic Finance at HBKU
Doha: The initiatives and efforts taken by authorities in Qatar have the potential to attract key fintech companies from across the world, 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, while talking during Qatar Financial Centre’s ‘Behind The Business’ programme. “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 Islamic Fintech market size in Qatar is projected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19.6 percent to reach $2bn by 2025, according to report by the Global Islamic Fintech Report 2021.
Qatar has recognised the Fintech industry as a key component of its knowledge-based economy objective. The National Fintech Strategy, set by Qatar Central Bank (QCB), provides a framework for initiatives that enable the local startup sector and create a favourable ecosystem for international Fintech firms to choose Qatar as their launchpad to the global market.
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.
Recently, College of Islamic Studies hosted a workshop on the nexus between green and Islamic finance where international experts discussed global best practices and explored 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. We have also seen an increase in variety of segments that look into embedding sustainability in the financial industry,” she said.
She added that private sector has important role in the field of green finance. “2015 was a turning point in terms of the global mobilization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and also for 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.
“In the context of Qatar looking at the environmental or climate challenges of Qatar of course there are opportunities for renewable energies and we have seen couple of initiatives. One of the recent one is Siraj Energy. Also Total has announced recently an ambitious project to promote renewable energy,” she added.
