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In a new podcast series in partnership with FinTech Profile and Mingzulu we’re breaking down corporate #venture capital in financial services - exploring opportunities, new markets and future trends as #fintech and venture enter a new phase…. Tune in this week! Ewan MacLeod Grant Niven Emma Niven Simon Hardie

At this year's GITEX GLOBAL Largest Tech & Startup Show in the World in Dubai talk of the #AI revolution was everywhere from the 10x to the Fintech Surge and Fintech Tuesdays stages. It's not hard to see why - nearly $300 billion has been invested in AI in the last 2 years - mostly by the private sector. With numbers this big it's hard to get a sense of scale. For a useful comparison - $300 billion is close to the combined spending of the UK and US governments on public healthcare between 1950 and 1980 during the founding years of Medicaid, Medicare and the National Health Service. Sladjana Franovic Teena Tolani Thawani Samer Bishay Oscar Wendel Nap E. Richie Santosdiaz Mark Walker Asim Chohan, (ACP, CCP, MCP, PMP) Mingzulu Simon Hardie Grant Niven Emma Niven Ewan MacLeod

How do we build a borderless #talent world? Thank you this year's Fintech Forward event hosted by The Economist Central Bank of Bahrain Bahrain FinTech Bay Tamkeen and Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) in Bahrain for a lively discussion on how to accelerate #diversity across #fintech. #Ecosystems that focus on #talent in all its forms - alongside carefully constructed regulatory regimes will win. #Talent has no borders. #FintechForward #TalentDiversity #WomenInFintech #GCC Nadine Mezher Holly Salter Laveena Iyer Suzy Al Zeerah Dr. Christina Yan Zhang findexable

🫱🏾🫲🏿 BANKING ON INNOVATION Managing the innovation mindset It's a truism that banks often struggle to deliver on their innovation initiatives. And it's also true that the relationship between tech investment and financial returns is not linear. Or to put it another way - innovation is about mindset and (internal) momentum - more than it is about replacing the mainframe. Delivering superior returns from innovation is also about building productive teams: 'Return on people' or revenue per employee (RPE) might be a crude measure for gauging innovation efforts but it is instructive (see chart). Unsurprisingly #bigtech have got this down to a fine art - Google Microsoft and Apple all manage RPE of $1m and up. Apple's RPE is nearly 3 times that at $2.5m. What about #financialservices tech 'outperformers'? 🌍 Among the industry's 'innovation leaders' Capital One is the clear winner with RPE close to that of Microsoft. It's also 50% higher than in 2019. 🌍 UBS Bank of America and JPMorganChase are firm followers. At UBS RPE is nearly 70% higher than 5 years ago. 🌍 Middleweight players HSBC Santander and Standard Chartered also appear to be dramatically improving productivity - HSBC's RPE is 73% higher than 2019. Building the mindset, culture and organisational disciplines to succeed at digital transformation is hard - but we'll leave you with this: 😳 If you're in any doubt about the value of the 'innovation dividend' this week the London Stock Exchange once again became #Europe's biggest stock market by market cap (Bloomberg). Whether this is good news for investors only time will tell. 😳 But with individual valuations hovering around $3.3T anyone of NVIDIA, Apple or Microsoft are today worth more than the combined market cap of all London- listed firms... Time to put those productive bank innovation minds to work! Mingzulu GITEX GLOBAL Largest Tech & Startup Show in the World Africa Fintech Network Fintech Tuesdays 1957 Ventures 1818 Venture Capital Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) Authority Michael Clark Grant Niven Emma Niven Ewan MacLeod Ben Lloyd Sebastian J. Olivera. MBA Alvaro Rojo Patrick Saidu Conteh PhD, FCCA(UK), MBA, BSc(Hons). Matteo Rizzi Mauro Romano Mark Diamond Qaiser Noor

♻️ THE DIGITAL SWITCH G20 payment trends Across the #G20 digital payments are rapidly moving the payments needle. 3 markets in particular - #Brazil #India and #SaudiArabia - each of them 'axis' economies in their respective regions are showing how a mix of proprietary (national) payment channels and transaction data infrastructure can turbo-charge their economies away from cash. And, in the case of Brazil & India, massively ramp up financial inclusion at the same as accelerating digitalisation: launched in 2020 transactions across Brazil's PIX network have jumped from 0 to over 60% of all card transaction volumes in 2023. 😳 In-country data and transaction infrastructure is increasingly providing competitive payments advantage for pro-innovation markets. 🌍 Interoperability's rise as a key driver of innovation will continue as regionalisation and payment diversification brings more choice to customers and more complexity to inter-regional and digital commerce. 🫱🏾🫲🏿 Agreed standards on data cultivation, collection and governance will become imperatives to reduce barriers to trade and innovation. Mingzulu GITEX GLOBAL Largest Tech & Startup Show in the World Fintech Saudi | فنتك السعودية mada | مدى stc pay Banco Central do Brasil National Payments Corporation Of India (NPCI) Africa Fintech Network Fintech Tuesdays 1957 Ventures Michael Clark Grant Niven Arjun Vir Singh Emma Niven Ewan MacLeod Sebastian J. Olivera. MBA J. Alvaro Rojo Patrick Moynagh Michael O'Loughlin ☘️ Patrick Saidu Conteh PhD, FCCA(UK), MBA, BSc(Hons). Ali Hussein Kassim Matteo Rizzi Gabrielle Inzirillo Panagiotis Kriaris James Wood

♻️ CVC in ME&A (3) Telcos - CV's calling card. #Middle East & #Africa corporate venture (CVC) activity is well established - particularly in the #Gulf where the region's oil and gas giants like Aramco Ventures and SABIC seek to diversify and drive internal innovation. Despite this CVC's took part in only 10% of venture deals across Middle East & Africa in 2023 - far below the global average of 25%. 🌍 In a funding downturn CVC can play a much needed role in funding the venture investment gap - and as regional markets become more digitised the risk/return balance for tech investments is increasingly attractive. 🌍 So far it's the region's telcos that have shown the biggest commitment to venture investments (and the biggest scale up successes - see below). Something proven once again by e& 's purchase of the Careem #superapp Stronger regional capital markets rely on enterprise commitment to innovation investments. With regional CVC about one tenth that of Asia - the potential to #10x investments is real. Mingzulu GITEX AFRICA Africa Fintech Network Fintech Saudi | فنتك السعودية Fintech Tuesdays FinTech Egypt Fintech Association of South Africa (FINASA) DIFC Innovation Hub 24Fintech GITEX GLOBAL Largest Tech & Startup Show in the World 1957 Ventures 1818 Venture Capital Fintech Association Of Kenya Motive Partners Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) Authority Crescent Enterprises Kitopi stc stc pay Grant Niven Arjun Vir Singh Emma Niven Ewan MacLeod Sebastian J. Olivera Alvaro Rojo Patrick Saidu Conteh PhD, FCCA(UK), MBA, BSc(Hons). Ali Hussein Kassim Juliana Rotich Hugo Bongers Diego Calascibetta Nasr J Al-Nasr

♻️ CVC in ME&A (2) Making hay in a venture winter. Change brings opportunities. The venture winter is tough on founders that are having to fight harder for every investor dollar than they have in a decade. A trend that's set to continue to 2030 (PitchBook, May 2024). Downturns are two-sided affairs though. While founders flounder, investors that are still in the game (industry estimates that VC firm numbers have dropped by about a third since 2022) get the pick of the bunch. Of course that doesn't solve the pipeline problem of a funding drought – less money also = fewer entrepreneurs. 🧲 Enter corporate venture capital (CVC): a concept embraced by big developed markets and much of #Asia. CVC’s benefits are multi-sided – not just enabling innovation but in its ability to grow the money supply by accelerating value in publicly traded firms. 🌍 While the #Middle East and #Africa have had some notable successes: Aramco Ventures,  venture investing arm of the oil giant has been an active investor in innovation for over a decade; #SaudiArabia telco stc created arguably the region’s first fintech unicorn in stc pay and #Kenya’s Safaricom PLC built M-PESA Africa kicking off a global mobile money revolution. 🌏 Despite this CVC activity continues to be the exception not the rule for the regions’ biggest companies (CVC activity by dollars invested in Q1 this year was a tenth the size of Asia). And what activity there is tends to be concentrated in the venture or early stage, leaving innovative firms starved of vital growth capital at a critical phase of development. With the funding winter set to last as long as 2030 – stepping up corporate venture activity would be a powerful lever to help the regions consolidate the hard-won innovation ecosystem gains of the last decade. ♻️ CVC = key priority for corporates to build value + innovation Mingzulu GITEX AFRICA Africa Fintech Network Fintech Saudi | فنتك السعودية Fintech Tuesdays FinTech Egypt Fintech Association of South Africa (FINASA) DIFC Innovation Hub Dubai FinTech Summit 24Fintech GITEX GLOBAL Largest Tech & Startup Show in the World Riyad Bank 1957 Ventures 1818 Venture Capital Fintech Association Of Kenya Grant Niven Arjun Vir Singh Emma Niven Ewan MacLeod Mohammad Nikkar, PhD Sebastian J. Olivera Alvaro Rojo Patrick Saidu Conteh PhD, FCCA(UK), MBA, BSc(Hons). Ali Hussein Kassim Juliana Rotich Cikü Mugambi Deepankar Rustagi Omar Hassan Ben Lloyd Olayide M. B. Ayça Apak

♻️ Re-cycling is good for the ecosystem! Corporate venture capital - Asia v MEA Corporate #venturecapital (CVC) is both restorative and generative: it helps build up capital reserves through value creation, as it enables innovation + entrepreneurial ecosystems. For markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East that are rolling out national economic transformation plans #CVC is a vital pillar. Some regions are further along the road than others. #Asia's CVC story is well developed where the #Africa and the #MiddleEast is emerging: 🌏 🌍 Q1 2024 CVC investment in Asia was 10x in $ value and transactions that of the Middle East & Africa. Investments were also across a wider range of sectors. 🇸🇦 The biggest MEA CVC deals this quarter were dominated by tech - with just one investment into manufacturing. While #SaudiArabia took the spot for the biggest deal of the remaining 9 largest investments 8 went Israel-based scaling tech firms. 🧲 🧲 A Europe-wide study of the impact of corporate venture units on parent company finances revealed value uplift of up to 74% for stakeholders over an 11 year period compared to firms without CVC units (PwC Deutschland) ♻️ CVC = key priority for policymakers and #corporates in #emergingregions vision2030 Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy Global Corporate Venturing Salla E-Commerce Platform Silverfort Exodigo Moove Sweet Security Xyte BRIA AI DustPhotonics Sensos NeuReality IM Motors Moonshot AI LegoChem Biosciences SILICON BOX Jixing Pharmaceuticals Cult Fit Singapore Kore.ai Credit Saison India Rebellions stc Ewan MacLeod Grant Niven Alvaro Rojo Omar Hassan Emma Niven Sebastian J. Olivera Eli David Rokah Diego Calascibetta Simon Hardie

A buyer’s market - Fintech in 2024 What’s focusing the minds of #fintech founders and investors in 2024? See below for a great review of Q1 2024 fintech #M&A in the 🇺🇸US from the team PitchBook - trends that will iterate globally throughout 2024: 3P’s for 2024: 💸💸 #Profitability: The venture winter is focusing minds on fintechs’ core mission, shutting down non-core services and getting to positive cashflow and a path to profitability. And, if that’s not an option, exploring options for exit or sale (see below). 🧭 Pragmatism: A wave of fintech-to-fintech acquisitions driven by fintechs (especially smaller firms) that have reached break-even will drive ‘verticalization’ during 2024. 🔮 Practicalities: An improving economic picture and subsiding fears of a recession will inspire ‘Big FS’ and ‘Big fintech’ to make bold strategic bets through acquisitions – in the case of industrial-scale fintechs the strong will get stronger... Other notes 🚨 In 2023, fintech companies venture funding in the US and Canada raised $34.6 billion – just over half the 2022 total. 🚨 Private equity firms are biggest buyers of scaled fintechs between 2020 and 2023 – with the concentration on enterprise fintech: 8 out 10 deals (and over 90% of M&A transaction value) in 2023 went to enterprise fintech (specifically capital markets and FS infrastructure tech) as B2C models struggle in tough market conditions. Mingzulu Ewan MacLeod Arjun Vir Singh Alvaro Rojo Ben Lloyd Anastasiya Kizima Grant Niven James Ulan Rudy Yang Brendan Le Grange Matteo Rizzi findexable

Join findexable at this year's Dubai FinTech Summit - in 3 days time! Register and use code FDX10 for a discount. Trescon Abhishek Timalaapur Naveen Bharadwaj Madhukar Dudda Vijay Walter Mohammad Alblooshi Samia Ahmad Bushra Shaikh Nasser Belhabala Somesh V. Sharath Ravi Mohammed Saleem Swarnavo Roy Mithun Shetty Sanjiv Singh Jaseem Kapoor Shadi Dawi Rajdatta Bekanalkar Tasneem Qaiser Thulasi Devi Anil Kumar