This seminar will coincide with the second day of the 5th World Government Summit 2017 held from 12-14 February 2017 in Dubai. ​​​

​ The seminar will commence with a speech by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of IMF, with HE Pierre Gramegna, Minister of Finance in Luxembourg and HE Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, Minister of State for Financial Affairs as the key note speakers. The seminar will be held in the presence of HRH Prince Guillaume, Crown Prince of Luxembourg; HE Younis Haji Al Khoori, Undersecretary of MoF; HE Khalid Ali Al Bustani, Assistant Undersecretary for International Financial Relations and a number of international experts in government financial fields. ​​​

HE Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, Minister of State for Financial Affairs, stressed the importance of the broad range of services provided by Fintech such as peer-to-peer lending, high-frequency trading (HFT) and crowdfunding. HE Al Tayer also highlighted the remarkable contributions to be witnessed by developments in digital technologies, which will drive effective change in financial services. HE Al Tayer said: “The seminar will cover a number of important topics including virtual currencies, and the underlying distributed ledgers through a block chain technology. These topics have been at the center of recent debates about how digital innovation changes financial fields.” ​​​

HE Al Tayer added: “This seminar will discuss both the challenges and opportunities derived from Fintech services, and the importance for regulatory authorities to keep up with the technological changes. It is also important to find balance between risk treatment and the misuse of technology to avoid over regulation which may limit innovation.” ​​​

The seminar will include a range of activities including a discussion panel moderated by Ross Leckow, Deputy General Counsel IMF and as key note speaker Pierre Gramegna, Minister of Finance, Luxembourg, and as panel speakers Howard Lee, Senior Executive Director HKMA; Jill Carlson, Partner Lead, Chain; and Patrick Murck, the Berkman Center at Harvard. The panel discussion will be followed by a Q&A session which will allow participants to raise questions and inquiries about Fintech. ​​​

The Ministry of Finance has proposed to have open sessions on the sidelines of World Government Summit to stress the importance of the Fintech services in government financial work, and highlight the Ministry’s role in leading change and achieving the future agenda. The Ministry has previously organised two workshops on Fintech in collaboration with the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), which covered the modern technologies applied to financial services, its impact on the banking sector, and the challenges face by Arab regulatory authorities to establish a suitable environment to adopt these new technologies. Theses workshops also discussed the mechanisms for managing crises in the financial services sector, as well as the impact of Fintech services in managing and erasing risks. ​​​