News

• Supported by the Abu Dhabi Government’s accelerator programme, Ghadan 21, the Digital Lab advances collaboration between financial institutions and FinTechs to co-create and deploy innovative solutions that aim to transform the financial services sector

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) is pleased to announce the launch of the inaugural ADGM Digital Lab Demo Day, which will be held virtually on 5 April 2021.

The Demo Day will mark the official launch of the Digital Marketplace. A key feature within the ADGM Digital Lab, the Digital Marketplace is a virtual community of financial institutions, FinTechs, investors, academia, policymakers and ecosystem enablers. Participants in the Marketplace can meet and seek collaborative opportunities to build and implement cutting-edge FinTech solutions for the digital economy.

Mr Emmanuel Givanakis, Deputy CEO, ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority, said: “The Demo Day brings together the FinTech ecosystem in a celebration of innovation adoption and collaborative creativity. We would like to thank the Ghadan 21 Office for its support, and founding stakeholders for their invaluable contributions towards the successful implementation of the Digital Lab, which represents the next generation of regulatory sandboxes and marketplace built on open platforms. We welcome financial institutions, start-ups, fellow regulators and the FinTech community at large to join us in making the Digital Lab the trusted arena to power the next generation of financial services.”

The inaugural group of participants featured on the Digital Marketplace will comprise, among others:

• Founding stakeholders and ecosystem partners of the Digital Lab, including the Central Bank of the UAE, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Etihad Credit Insurance, Plug & Play ADGM, and Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem – Hub71;
• Technology partners and service providers, including Microsoft, OneConnect Financial Technology, Mambu, and Sunline;
• Venture capitalists licensed in ADGM;
• FinTech start-ups licensed under the ADGM RegLab regime;
• FinTech100 companies selected from ADGM’s global Search Tour;
• FinTechs from Plug and Play, ADGM’s accelerator cohorts; and
• FinTechs from the FinTech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge 2020.

The Demo Day will showcase the exciting collaborations undertaken by market participants in the Digital Lab with a focus on open banking, financial inclusion, and regulatory compliance (RegTech). More details, including speakers, will be announced in due course.

Visit the event page for more detailed information and videos introducing the Digital Lab and to register for Demo Day.

Accelerating Abu Dhabi’s Innovation-driven Digital Transformation

One of the key challenges financial institutions encounter in their ability to adopt innovation is the process of procuring, and thereafter integrating with their legacy systems, digital solutions offered by FinTechs and other technology providers in a timely and cost-effective manner.

With the specific aim of solving this challenge, the Digital Lab is built with functionalities that enable testing and verification of new products or solutions prior to procurement, thereby expediting time to market for financial institutions in a cost-effective manner. Such functionalities include:

• API-driven connectivity: enabling the use of APIs that meet international security and interoperability standards to connect between the systems of financial institutions and FinTechs or technology providers. Before listing an API on the Digital Marketplace, the API-provider is required to complete a conformance and certification process, which will help determine whether they have implemented each part of the standards correctly.
• Docker images and containerisation: enabling financial institutions to easily replicate their core-banking systems in secure, access-controlled containers.
• Low-code workflow tools: empowering teams across financial institutions that may not have an IT background to collaborate together and use simple drag and drop functionalities to experiment with how new tech solutions can interact with and improve existing workflows or create / enhance products.
• Challenge notice board: through which Digital Lab users seeking tech solutions can post their problem statements, and source solutions from the firms listed on the Digital Lab Marketplace. For instance, financial institutions may pose problem statements and invite FinTechs and regulators to run and test proofs-of-concept (POCs) that can lead to eventual production.
• Synthetic data generator: where access to synthetic data will facilitate innovation testing in full compliance with data protection requirements.

ADGM launched the Digital Lab in 2020, which is an enhancement of the RegLab. The Digital Lab provides a platform for financial institutions and FinTech innovators to come together to experiment on solutions in a fully digital environment, as well as a marketplace for open collaboration between innovators, institutions, and regulators in the financial ecosystem to facilitate testing and adoption of innovative digital financial products and services that can benefit the industry in the region.

For more information on how your organisation, start-up or regulatory agency can connect with or collaborate with the ADGM Digital Lab, please contact us at fintech@adgm.com.