I was attending the 11th MENA regulatory summit which is talking about combating financial

crime, this conference conducted in JW Marriott marquis on 5th and 6th of February in Dubai; I
attend the c-suite perspective session, this session talks about the Fintech and their roles.

We have learned that Fintech is a group of companies delivering financial services but outside
of a regulatory environment, it is non-financial companies which are developing new
applications for financial institutions, they are using more technology to deliver financial
services.

Fintech is a permanent disruption to existing financial institutions and the government should
regulate fintech companies but they should develop bespoke regulations for the sector.

There are many risk facing Fintech companies and these risks should be managed in good ways:

1- Failure of the business to make money

2- Misleading advertisements or selling products to wrong customers
3- Cyber security issues resulting in loss of data
4- Potential abuse by financial criminals
5- Regulations
The largest risk facing Fintech companies is the Potential abuse by financial criminals.

The second session was talking about lifting economic sanctions and the financial crime:

After networking coffee break we attend this session and it was mainly talking about the
importance of firms to invest in an integrated approach to manage financial crime risk.

A strong governance structure and financial crime strategy is critical to maintaining an effective
compliance programmer that will protect the organization. Elements of this should include:

1- A financial crime target operating model, which were needed focuses on individuals
components. Anti-money laundering, sanction, and market abuse.
2- An enterprise wide strategy design that focuses on implementation and oversight of
financial crime programs and controls.
3- Advanced data analytics technologies.
4- Change management programs that inculcate financial crime prevention into the culture
of the financial institutions.
5- High quality integrity due diligence.

So financial institutions need to continue to monitor and test financial crime systems and
policies for required efficiency and tailor systems to the changing nature of external and internal
threats. Taking everything into consideration the both sessions of this conference was very
useful to know more about these tackling issues in financial crimes.