FinTech collaboration between Israel and UAE accelerates | PYMNTS.com

It has been two years since a US-brokered agreement normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2020, which led to the opening of embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv and launched a new era of bilateral cooperation in areas which i.a. trade, security and financial services.

For businesses located in two of the most innovative economies in the Middle East region, the Abraham agreement has opened up opportunities for collaboration that have the potential to significantly boost their respective technology sectors.

For example, it was announced this month that two Israeli companies are joining the Abu Dhabi Investment Office’s (ADIO) innovation program, a $545 million scheme to encourage global technology firms to expand their intellectual property in the emirate.

FinTech-focused Liquidity Group became the first Israeli firm to join the program in a move that will also see the group open a research and development center in Abu Dhabi, where it intends to develop machine learning-enabled (ML) LendTech solutions for their underwriting business.

The global credit automation specialist, which also has offices in New York, Miami, London, Tel Aviv and Singapore, will further contribute to Abu Dhabi’s wider FinTech ecosystem by building a new enterprise ML competence center to support other startups in the city in using its credit decisive technology.

Finally, Liquidity said it will partner with Abu Dhabi-based universities to develop educational programs and certifications focused on ML.

The second Israeli firm to join the ADIO innovation scheme was announced shortly after Abu Dhabi Finance Week earlier this month. OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-headquartered investment platform, revealed that it is expanding its operations in the United Arab Emirates with a new venture capital (VC) office and artificial intelligence (AI) technology hub in Abu Dhabi.

The new VC office will see OurCrowd grow its Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) team to 60 over the next four years, while investing $60 million in the emirate.

See more: Abu Dhabi, Dubai shine as crypto adoption continues to accelerate in MENA

Meanwhile, the company is entering into a joint venture with ADIO to launch a new AI-focused initiative that will operate from ADGM’s Hub71. The new venture, Integrated Data Intelligence (IDI), is intended to enable technology startups in the financial center to leverage and commercialize AI.

The latest ties between startup ecosystems in Israel and the UAE build on what has already been two busy years of collaboration and co-investment between the two countries. ADIO, for example, opened an office in Tel Aviv last April and has signed several bilateral trade and investment agreements since then.

Not to be outdone by ADGM’s efforts to establish ties with Israel, the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) signed an agreement with Israel’s innovation enabler, Start-Up Nation Central (SNC), last October.

This agreement, which was agreed last year, is intended to establish innovation bridges between Israeli startups and the DIFC with a particular focus on FinTech.

As part of the agreement, the parties have also committed to helping Israeli and Emirati companies looking to scale their operations in each other’s jurisdictions, including through programs such as regulatory sandboxes and accelerators to enable firms in each country to access markets in the second.

Before that in September, SNC signed a similar memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ADGM with the aim of contributing to the development of their respective innovation ecosystems.

Another MoU signed between ADGM Academy and Avnon Group has allowed ADGM to leverage Israel’s world-leading cybersecurity expertise in the establishment of its new School of Digital Assets.

Related: Israel: At the Confluence of FinTech, Cybersecurity Innovation

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