The 5th Doha Islamic Finance Conference entitled "Islamic Finance and Digital World" will be held here on March 19.
The conference will be attended by a number of international governmental bodies, organisations, as well as financial and academic institutions in economy, finance and digital technology.
The conference's deliverables are expected to contribute to the development of the Islamic banking industry in Qatar and the entire world.
Vice chairman of the organising committee, Dr Osama Qais al-Dereai, also the managing director and chief executive officer of Bait Al-Mashura, said, "In light of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the world faces a series of challenges imposed by the renewed digital reality. In the domain of finance and business, digital finance is poised to change market's equilibrium and power centres, as it impacted all sectors of economy including Islamic finance.
Al-Dereai said, "Ernst & Young estimates that the adoption of the financial technology (fintech) applications by Islamic banks around the world will increase their customer base rapidly and attract 150mn new customers by 2021.
“Therefore, there is a growing trend among Islamic financial institutions to adopt technological and digital systems, where a number of companies specialising in technology simplify the contracts of Islamic finance through the use of blockchain technology, while others are targeting the development of Integrated Payment Systems.
“These new systems could lead to a significant savings in operational cost via smart contracts as well as simplifying and accelerating banking transactions, avoiding brokers and making Islamic financial transactions simpler and faster.”
