Five Dubai FinTech start-ups graduate from sandbox

Emirates NBD and FinTech Hive work with start-ups to help them build more robust services

Five firms based in the Fintech Hive, an accelerator programme run by Dubai International Financial Centre, have successfully completed a technology collaboration with Emirates NBD. Reem Mohammed/The Show more

Five financial technology (Fintech) start-ups have graduated from a programme run by Emirates NBD to demonstrate their services can be integrated with major lenders' own online systems.

Emirates NBD has been working with Dubai International Financial Centre's (DIFC) FinTech Hive on helping start-ups to successfully integrate their technologies with an API (application programming interface) sandbox set up by the lender. The sandbox allows developers access to more than 200 of Emirates NBD's APIs and 500 other endpoints covering retail, corporate and SME customers, as well as over five million simulated customer transactions.

The five firms that graduated were: digital trade finance firm Monimove; Norbloc, a shared KYC (know your customer) system using blockchain; a keyboard banking system known as Gamechanger; a chatbot for the finance industry called Bankbuddy; and a digital onboarding programme for SMEs called Leap FinTech. They have all received a certificate of collaboration from the bank.

"We are confident that this initiative will pave the path for many more collaborations in the future between banks and FinTechs in the region, helping tackle various challenges while delivering a smarter and more secure customer experience in the process,” Abdulla Qassem, group chief operating officer for Emirates NBD said.

Emirates NBD's programme was open to all of the companies registered within DIFC's FinTech Hive, allowing them to prove their technology's ability to work with a real bank, as well as offering each FinTech the opportunity to continue working with the bank.