Dubai - the next market for India's B2B fintech

Dubai offers one of the best ecosystems to nurture innovations in investments. The thriving financial sector offers a bundle of opportunities for Indian B2B fintech willing to expand overseas.

The Dubai Fintech Summit was a truly global platform to witness the world’s largest financial ecosystem DIFC or Dubai international financial center. The fintech community is assuring its position as the top fintech hub with record investments. The new company registrations go beyond 1000 for the first time reaching a total number of 4,377 companies. The financial Summit was organized on May 8th and 9th, 2023. The Summit attracted more than 5000 experts, industry leaders, and decision-makers to share their ideas on the growth of the new financial sector.

DIF leveraged the Summit to combine fintech start-ups, banks, and regulators across the world to enrich the digitalization of financial sectors and organize future finance. The DIFC governor, H.E. Essa Kazim mentioned that financial sectors are expanding faster than average GDP in the last 10 years. Moreover, it contributes around 6 percent to its GDP. Furthermore, the fintech companies act as a key growth driver contributing over 27 percent to the DIFC’s growth.

The proactive approach and effective measures to create an ecosystem supporting innovation and investment, contribute to the growth of fintech sectors. In 2022, fintech and innovation was strong area for DIFC. Around 686 startups and global unicorns were initiated in the last year in DIFC.

DIFC has plans to identify and grow 10 high-caliber fintech start-ups based in the UAE and India into unicorns as of 2025. Since DIFC entered into a partnership with the FICCI, they launched a UAE and India start-up corridor.

UAE is second to none in terms of investment. The business environment is amazing and the Middle East always stays ahead in emerging technologies. Having a business-friendly environment, UAE is expected to witness exponential growth for entrepreneurs and start-ups.

The fintech summit aimed at setting a benchmark for financial innovation. The expert policymakers, thinkers, and investors were intentional on themes such as Macroeconomics, startups, wealth, the future of fintech, digital payments, embedded open finance, crypto, policy making, and Web3.

Indian venture capitalists and start-up founders consider Dubai as the gateway to reach the rest of the world. Dubai has not disappointed any entrepreneurs. The conducive business environment, infrastructure, and business-friendly policies attract a lot of Indian companies.

For example - Safexpay is an Indian company planning to set up its international headquarters as a part of the expansion into the international market.

Dubai's government set high standards and flexible regulatory frameworks according to the financial laws. Indians consider Dubai as their next natural market. Moreover, Dubai opens a new horizon for Indian start-ups in the global fintech sector.