Finastra Forum
Middle East & Africa
Live Stream Event

10:00 AM – 10:15 AM (GST)

Welcome

• Margaret Franco, Chief Marketing Officer, Finastra
• Wissam Khoury, SVP and General Manager of International, Finastra
• Serge Tohme, VP & MD of Middle East & Africa, Finastra

Keynote: Accelerating Growth in the New World

As global economies and sentiment begin to edge upwards, institutions have emerged in a stronger position than analysts and economists first anticipated. But, with every crisis leading to an inevitable uptick in innovation, is the world they are reentering the same as it was, pre-pandemic? Join Eric Duffaut as he discusses what’s changed in financial services, and how to leverage the changes to ignite growth.

• Eric Duffaut, President and Global Head of Customer Operations, Finastra

Banking as a Service: The $7 Trillion Opportunity

Banking as a Service (BaaS) is set to rock financial services more than any other disruptive force seen this decade. BaaS providers, embedders and orchestrators debate on the importance and impact of BaaS on financial services. Who is leading the charge? What are the steps to play and win? How will you survive and thrive?

• Grant Niven, Head of Group Digital, Banque Saudi Fransi
• Max Di Gregorio, Managing Director, Financial Services Middle East, Accenture
• Nour Sabri, Lead Client Partner, Banking as a Service, Finastra
• Jeannette Kescenovitz, Senior Director, Solution Management, BaaS & Orchestration, Finastra
• Margaret Franco, Chief Marketing Officer, Finastra (Moderator)

11:15 AM – 11:40 AM

BREAK

Welcome Back

• Margaret Franco, Chief Marketing Officer, Finastra

Banking as a Service: Technology as an Enabler

Technology is the facilitator of unbundled financial services, it will open the door for financial institutions to enter the BaaS realm. Angus’s tech talk will discuss questions about tech stacks, data and partnerships to be successful. You’ll also see a demo showcasing Finastra’s new BaaS solutions.

• Angus Ross, CRO, Banking as a Service, Finastra

The Sustainability Roadmap: A greener cloud: Aligning your ESG strategy to sustainable technologies

How can banks accelerate their sustainability journey through cloud technology to achieve their Environmental Social Governance goals? Our panel of experts will explore learnings from COP26 and the impact on the financial services sector, top ESG priorities and how to reduce a bank’s carbon footprint.

• Ramez Dandan, Regional Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft
• Edwin de Groot, Sales Manager, Conpend
• Joerg Klueckmann, VP, Integrated & Digital Marketing, Finastra
• Jay Mukhey, Senior Director, ESG, Finastra
• Neil Budd, VP - Global Head of Managed Services, Finastra

Fintech Showcase

An exclusive selection of Fintechs take the stage to showcase their innovative applications built on Finastra’s open platform FusionFabric.cloud – find out how their apps can enhance your core solution and bring innovation to your customers today.

• Zamrad KP, Director, Sales & Strategy, i-exceed
• Girish Parameswaran, Senior Consultant, Product Management, i-exceed
• Edwin de Groot, Head of Sales, Conpend
• Alina Beleuta, Growth Officer, Saltedge
• Nicola Young, Head of Platform Marketing, Finastra

1:35 PM – 2:15 PM

BREAK

Breakout Session A

Orchestrating digital trade finance in a new regulatory landscape

Breakout Session B

Digital Treasury: easier said than done. Until now.

Breakout Session A

Orchestrating cash & liquidity for corporate and commercial banking clients

Breakout Session B

Journey to the cloud and associated regulatory implications

3:20 PM – 3:40 PM

BREAK

Breakout Session A

Orchestrating collaboration: maximising growth through co-opetition

Breakout Session B

Fireside chat: Treasury transformation in MEA

Breakout Session A

Balance sheet optimization: using innovation at the heart of your organization.

Breakout Session B

Fintech Ecosystem and adoption of Fintechs in MEA

2:15 PM – 2:45 PM

Orchestrating digital trade finance in a new regulatory landscape

The new thematic review of targeted financial sanctions and trade-based money laundering by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates highlights tighter controls to ensure that the region can continue to flourish as an international hub for trade. Changes to the compliance landscape will impact practices, processes and departments within banks in the region. At the same time we are seeing increasing trade volumes alongside growing client demand for seamless, end-to-end and front-to-back digital trade & working capital finance.

• Carlos Teixeira, Strategic Sales Executive, Finastra
• Tim Tyler, Global Solution Consultant Principal, Finastra
• Edwin de Groot, Sales Manager, Conpend
• Paul Baker, Head of Group Operations, Bank ABC

2:50 PM – 3:20 PM

Orchestrating cash & liquidity for corporate and commercial banking clients

With many banks having had to accelerate their digitalisation journeys to support operational change over the last two years, is it now time to once again look ahead and see what the future can bring? We discuss where banks are on their journey to normalise the new, how they can enhance their cash and liquidity services and ask whether being a collaborator takes on a whole new meaning in an open world.

• Carlos Teixeira, Strategic Sales Executive, Finastra
• Tim Tyler, Global Solution Consultant Principal, Finastra
• Martin Smith, Global Head of Markets Analysis, East & Partners
• Joost Bergen, Founder and CEO, Cash Dynamics

3:40 PM – 4:10 PM

Orchestrating collaboration: maximising growth through co-opetition

In a world of growing disintermediation, be the best at what you’re good at. For everything else, find the right partners. Choosing where to focus innovation efforts and where to bring innovators into your ecosystem, is using cooperation to beat the competition. We will introduce you to co-opetition and how your organisation could take advantage of it to minimise churn, grow the scale of your customer acquisition and drive revenue growth.

• Carlos Teixeira, Strategic Sales Executive, Finastra
• James Mellor, Global Solution Consultant, Finastra
• Tim Tyler, Global Solution Consultant Principal, Finastra

4:15 PM – 4:45 PM

Balance sheet optimization: using innovation at the heart of your organization

Although the size and complexity vary between local and global financial institutions, the balance sheet and its performance remain at the heart of every financial institution.

Yet, due to its complexity and ever-increasing number of influencing factors, balance sheet management is still largely manual, with its performance driven by intuition and experience of the management. Fortunately, the latest advances in (cloud) computing and machine learning make it possible to crack the complicated optimization problems within a reasonable period of time.

In this session you will learn how banks can use innovative technologies and AI to optimize their balance sheets and make the best decisions for both, their customers and the bank’s bottom line.

• Abhijit Duge, Global Industry Principal, Treasury and Capital Markets, Finastra
• Roni Saroniemi, Head of Business Development, Detech

2:15 PM – 2:45 PM

Digital Treasury: easier said than done. Until now.

Banks need to rely on systems in order to automate their business. Operational risk, scale and cost will not allow you to grow unless you automate and digitize. However, having systems come with many issues.

On premises, large and complicated software packages can become a huge burden to banks, new functionality painful to implement, each $1 spent on a software license can mean another $10 to $20 spent to run and operate it. Meanwhile digital banks, without the handicap of the old, are very quick to market.

In this session we will see how Finastra is leading the way on simplifying the architecture at financial institutions by bringing to life the “as a service” play. We will cover how Risk as a Service, Collateral as a Service and Regulatory Reporting as a Service can get you close, and faster, to having Treasury as a Service.

• Pedro Porfirio, Global Head of Treasury, Capital Markets & Risk, Finastra
• Justin Taylor, Managing Director, Vector Risk
• Abhijit Duge, Global Industry Principal, Treasury and Capital Markets, Finastra
• Ihyeeddine Elfeki, Global Lead, Trading & Risk Solutions, Luxoft

2:50 PM – 3:20 PM

Journey to the cloud and associated regulatory implications

The session will discuss core banking migration to the cloud and related regulatory implications with our special guest panel. They will also discuss what are the key challenges financial institutions face when adopting a core deployment and examine the benefits of a platform-based ecosystem that can help drive digital innovation and customer engagement.

• Marwan Abouzeid, Principal Solutions Consultant, Finastra
• Ramez Dandan National Technology Officer (CTO), Microsoft
• Suleiman Barada, Head of UAB Digital, Union of Arab Banks

3:40 PM – 4:10 PM

Fireside chat: Treasury transformation in MEA

• Abhijit Duge, Global Industry Principal, Treasury and Capital Markets, Finastra

4:15 PM – 4:45 PM

Fintech Ecosystem and adoption of Fintechs in MEA

Digital transformation is driving a seismic shift in financial services and consumer behavior, disintermediating established players and enabling a new wave of digital-first providers to prioritize convenience and relevance, supported by sophisticated analytics. In this session we’ll gain insights from our panel on the take up of the Fintech ecosystem and the platform based approach within MEA and whether this is dramatically accelerating innovation across the region leading FIs to excel in the digital age.

• Marwan Abouzeid, Principal Solutions Consultant, Finastra
• Ramy Elkhoulany, Director Product Management, Finastra
• Nadia Benaissa, Marketing Director, BPC
• Alina Beleuta, Growth Officer, Salt Edge Inc.