Emirates NBD (National Bank of Dubai), a leading banking group in the MENAT (Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey) region, has launched a global accelerator programme for metaverse start-ups to enhance client experience for the new virtual economy. The programme was launched in partnership with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Fintech Hive, the largest financial technology hub in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (MEASA) region, and powered by leading technology provider Microsoft.
The accelerator programme positions the bank as a leader in the subsequent stage of banking innovation in alignment with the Dubai Metaverse Strategy as the Emirates NBD in scripts its preview in the metaverse. This intends to introduce Dubai in the top ten metaverse economies of the world, adding USD 4 billion to Dubai’s economy in five years and supporting over 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030.
The bank is exploring innovative technologies in the web 3.0 world to expand its digital footprint and generate captivating experiences for their customers, including 94% of all financial transactions and requests conducted outside the branches.
Emirates NBD in the metaverse environment
Emirates NBD is exploring to lead the Fintech’s, digital experience start-ups and evolving technology participants operating to enhance its absorption in the virtual world across the metaverse environment in three key areas:
- Building the technology stack to accelerate the shift to 3D.
- Creating virtual worlds to enhance consumer experience in the metaverse.
- Enabling a decentralized payment infrastructure for consumers to generate, monetise, purchase, and sell digital assets and services.
The DIFC Fintech Hive would estimate and match Emirates NBD with leading start-ups offering unique propositions on the value creation, technology stack and experience essential for the metaverse over a ten-week acceleration programme.
This would culminate in a demo day at GITEX where the shortlisted contributors would launch their solutions for an opportunity to co-create enthralling experiences for their customers in the new reality.
Noting on the launch, Marwan Hadi, Executive Vice President, and Head of Retail Banking at Emirates NBD stated that engaging innovative start-ups is vital to Dubai’s determination to be an international leader in the metaverse. Emirates NBD has constantly stood as a front-runner of digital innovation, seeing to experiment and partner with tech start-ups who can help them quicken their transformation journey and create solutions that optimise client experience.
With the bank’s entry into the metaverse, they seek to reimagine financial services using extended reality and generate compelling new propositions for their customers in the new metaverse economy.
Miguel Rio Tinto, Group Chief Information Officer at Emirates NBD said that as a bank that has always been at the frontline of adopting evolving technologies, realise distinctive opportunity expanses to reimagine financial services comprising virtualising interactions with customers and offering financial services to the creator economy by empowering new products and marketplaces. Emirates NBD is looking forward to becoming a launchpad of innovative financial services in the metaverse through the backing of the DIFC FinTech Hive and Microsoft, playing a functioning part in co-creating new experiences for their customers with innovative start-ups from across the globe.
Raja Al Mazrouei, Executive Vice President of FinTech Hive at the DIFC, stated that the company is delighted to collaborate with Emirates NBD to launch the global accelerator programme for metaverse start-ups, witnessing an increasing interest from across the globe. This phase reasserts their commitment to support Dubai’s ambition to be among the top ten metaverse economies in the world. At the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) FinTech Hive, the team continues to adopt state-of-the-art technologies to keep pace with the rising momentum in the global digital space.
In the metaverse, where digital and physical creations consolidate to form an entirely new platform layer, create transformative solutions that completely revolutionize the journeys Naim Yazbeck, General Manager at Microsoft UAE stated.
Yazbeck added pioneering tech start-ups plays a vital role in this reimagining, fetching unique, creative, perspectives to the design of an entirely new planet. The company recognizes the impact that start-ups could distribute when they are armed with next-generation technologies that bring in innovative ideas. The company anticipates to working with these trend-setters and serving them realize this potential over the course of the programme.
