The Business Trip: Finance & Technology

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I'm Andrea cathodes and I'm here to find

out more about one of the most exciting

new business markets in the world join

me on a journey as I explore the people

and the businesses that are driving

Kassar financial technology widely

referred to as FinTech is one of the

world's fastest growing business sectors

and it's thriving here in Casa and right

at the heart of that is QDB Casa

Development Bank and today I'm here to

meet its executive director of

investment Ibrahim Haslam I think the

term we're using a lot and qgp is glockl

which is global local so we won't

support the local companies to grow

outside beyond borders we focus on three

main pillars the access to capital

access to information access to market

for the services and the support

provided by the government to the SMEs

to be the one-stop shop no I know that

you use the term hand-holding support

for international companies can you give

me an idea of what that involves there

are two ways that YouTube is trying to

support international companies one is

by working with the early stage startups

through the incubation program

acceleration programs that qgb has the

other thing is to work with the bigger

international companies and benefit from

fair scale by trying to help them with

their procurement by trying to help them

localize part of their supply chain now

one of the fastest growing areas in

finance is fin tech how are you getting

involved we're trying to build the most

connected phonetic ecosystem what we did

is we created a tower fan tech task

force that's led by our CEO by qdb but

also includes our partners from many

other stakeholders including qfc Qatar

central bank together we put a road map

so there is a road map where we want to

be in five years and this is what we're

now trying to execute through this

frantic task force fantastic that's

great thank you very much indeed thank

you

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catters capital market is one of the top

ten financial markets in the world by

many indicators its stock exchange was

the third best performing last year with

more than 20 percent returns for

investors with products ranging from

insurance and banking to cutting-edge

biometric security and financial

education FinTech is attracting a

burgeoning number of startups last year

global funding for the sector grew by a

hundred and twenty percent and nice

stands at over one hundred and eleven

billion u.s. dollars but it's not just

about financial returns and the bottom

line a strong focus on a high quality of

life is also attracting a large range of

international specialists to the region

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beehive a Belgian FinTech firm has

formed a partnership with QFC in order

to promote business opportunities and

knowledge sharing but find out what that

actually means in practice I'm here to

meet at CEO whim Diwali well we found

that the company about three years ago

we noticed that there is a big FinTech

wave emerging use a lot of companies

that are being started to cross the

world we wanted to set up a community

platform as it were an enabler for those

companies to get easier market access

so beehive tries to find that venture

capital and also tries to connect

FinTech companies with banks yes the

venture capital side is actually pretty

well covered but actually getting those

companies into the market is a real

challenge why did you decide to come to

Casa clear that there's a high level of

ambition and we have been able to really

work very fruitfully with the local

people from Qatar Financial Center and

Qatar Development Bank's so I have high

hopes for the future

last year katta allocated 2 billion u.s.

dollars to attract international

companies to its financial center so now

if you have an office in Doha you are

eligible for tax incentives for free

office space and for five years seed

capital in return for a ten year

investment such moves are helping

multinational companies to relocate and

are cultivating a positive environment

for any budding entrepreneurs it's no

surprise to see quatre comes first among

the Arab states for starting a new

business as compiled by the Global

Entrepreneurship Index in America

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companies based here also enjoy a rich

arts and cultural backdrop as the new

National Museum of Qatar highlights

with such an acclaimed ecosystem

I asked local business owner Kim Wyatt

how she found the market

for entrepreneurs personally I love

being an entrepreneur here the market

has absolutely opened up it's a really

important time for new entrepreneurs

both countries and expats to really

engage in the business world tell me a

little bit about what it's like to live

in Casa so I got here eight years ago

and I've seen a lot of changes in Qatar

and I can say that I love it so much

it's provided a fantastic opportunity

for me

and I really feel like it's at a prime

time and you're going to see a lot more

with the country while FinTech is

pioneering new business development it's

also being used to ensure a more

streamlined and safe working environment

for employees across numerous industries

as Nabil Vanessa from QP explains

so what we do at coop a is focus on

servicing the small businesses primarily

and the ecosystem of employees family

etc we go to shops who only accept cash

for payment and then we give them a

point-of-sale device which has an

Android interface multiple applications

and now that business not can accept

electronic pay instead of cash and then

we also what we do for their employees a

lot of these employees will work for

these small shops or construction

employees etc they don't have bank

accounts and they always get their

they're paying cash we give them a

MasterCard

but it also has a bank account on it in

the back katar now is developing is

they're building stadiums and they have

the World Cup 2022 and they just want to

make sure that the employees are

protected we're digitizing the whole

Qatari small business community what

you've done here is really quite

innovative how do you feel about that

digital payments cleans up society and

usually when you have a lot of digital

payments businesses grow faster and

decide it becomes cleaner and we are

very proud to be part of this objective

in this society financial services

clearly represents a huge part of

catters fast-growing economy but there's

much more besides join me next time on

the business trip when I'll be looking

at sports and digital expertise and

finding out just what it takes to be top

of the table