The Bahrain Economic Development Board and FinTech Consortium have launched Bahrain FinTech Bay, a FinTech hub dedicated to the Middle East and Africa.
This hub aims to continue the development and acceleration of FinTech companies and connect them with investors, entrepreneurs, government bodies and financial institutions. The hub is set to open in February next year. The building will comprise of state of the art facilities, co-working spaces, communal areas, workstations, hot desks, and a variety of other shared infrastructure.
FinTech Consortium Bahrain chairman Maissan Al Maskati said, “It [Bahrain] is the only regional financial centre to provide a complete offering for corporate and individual FinTech innovators. It has strategically provided the key ingredients that are a necessary to build a successful FinTech ecosystem including the Central Bank’s guidelines on FinTech, the introduction of advanced technological infrastructure through AWS, and now the launch of Bahrain FinTech Bay.”
Last month saw Nordic FinTech Hub partner with Helsinki FinTech Farm, as the sandbox looks to expand its presence across the region and into Finland. The hub looks to support local FinTech companies to connect with banks and regulators.
The Middle East and Africa regions are some of the least funded areas for FinTech, with Africa only seeing $17.7m deployed across the entity of 2016. The Middle East region is dominated by Israel, with it accounting for around 96 per cent of the total funding last year.
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