How the UAE built its fintech hub, and where it goes next

The UAE has moved from free-zone sandboxes to national payment rails, open finance and licensed dirham stablecoins in the past decade. The UAE’s fintech sector has its roots in the financial free zones , where Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) launched RegLab in November 2016 – the region’s first fintech regulatory sandbox. The first cohort included two start-ups from the UAE, two from India and one from the US. The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) opened its FinTech Hive accelerator in January 2017, and the Dubai Financial Services Authority introduced an innovation testing licence allowing companies to test products under…