DUBAI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Dubai financial free zone DIFC said here on Monday that its division FinTech Hive started earlier today its first mentoship program for 11 ICT startups from eight countries to address the evolving needs of the Middle East's financial services industry.
The accelerator program consists of a 12-week curriculum in which a group of selected finalists work closely with financial institutions and other stakeholders to create real solutions that aim to address the evolving needs of the region's financial services industry, said the DIFC.
"These 11 start-ups demonstrate a delicate balance of remarkable vision, practical application and commercial potential in the FinTech space," Raja Al-Mazrouei, Acting Executive Vice President of FinTech Hive at DIFC told Xinhua by email.
The 11 startups are from the DIFC's home country United Arab Emirates (UAE), United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Singapore, India, Azerbaijan and Jordan.
"The FinTech sector has attracted more than 50 billion dollars in investment globally since 2010, but currently the Middle East only accounts for around one percent of that. With 70 percent of the region's population unbanked, there's a real need for innovative FinTech solutions," added Al-Mazroui.
The final phase of the mentorship program will be pitch preparation for the Investor Day in mid-November. On this day, each start-up will promote its product to a host of investors and bankers so that each startup has the chance but not the guarantee to get an investor aboard to market its product or even to be acquired.
"As the leading financial center in the region, with an existing community of more than 21,000 professionals working across 1,600 firms, DIFC is the ideal platform to bring together innovative technology firms with traditional financial institutions," said Al-Mazrouei.
