UBF CEOs Advisory Council Reviews Progress on Blockchain Initiative and SME Finance

The CEOs Advisory Council of UAE Banks Federation (UBF), a professional representative body comprising 48 member banks operating in the UAE, held its fourth meeting of the year in Dubai today to review the progress of the federation’s initiatives mainly on Digitization standard for the blockchain, as well as SMEs access to finance.

“The meeting was constructive and fruitful given the initiatives and proposals, launched during the year with the aim to raise and enhance standards in UAE’s banking sector. The meeting underpinned the increasing importance of collective efforts to strengthen the sector and defending it against growing threats from cybercriminals and fraudsters as well as enhancement of customers experience through the initiatives adopted during the year specifically “Customer complaints framework and Ethical selling standards. The council reviewed progress on current initiatives on Blockchain digitization standard as well as support of SME sector.”  said H.E AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, Chairman of UBF.

During the meeting, Mr. Fuad Mohammad, Chairman of Digital banking committee presented progress made so far on the committee’s initiative to conduct a feasibility study for blockchain technology and explore opportunities for creating an industry standard to digitize various processes within the banks, as blockchain attributes of security appear to provide a potential solution in improving efficiency and banks customers experience.

"Mr.  Brian Belcher, Chairman of the Risk Management Committee (RMC), addressed the council and presented several RMC initiatives on enhancing the SME lending environment in the UAE. This includes: stronger market-wide support for SME’s, better auditing standards in the sector and improved due diligence by banks."

The council also discussed latest developments and challenges in the banking sector, relevant banking regulations, and the proposed roll-out of value-added tax in 2018.