UAE-based Emirates NBD has launched a metaverse accelerator program for the new virtual economy. The accelerator is in partnership with DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre) Fintech Hive, and Microsoft,
Emirates NBD’s metaverse accelerator programme is in line with the Dubai Metaverse Strategy. With 94 percent of all financial transactions and requests conducted outside the branches, the bank is exploring new technologies in the Web 3.0 world to expand its digital footprint and create immersive experiences for our customers.
The company is looking for Fintechs and emerging tech players in the metaverse ecosystem with the aim to enhance its immersion in the virtual world across three key areas: building the technology stack to facilitate the shift to 3D, creating virtual worlds to augment the customer experience in the metaverse and enabling a decentralised payment infrastructure for customers to create, monetise, buy and sell digital assets and services.
Over a period of 10 weeks, the DIFC Fintech Hive will evaluate and match Emirates NBD with leading start-ups offering unique propositions on the value creation, experience and technology stack required for the metaverse.
This will culminate in a demo day at GITEX 2022 where the shortlisted participants will pitch their solutions for an opportunity to co-create engaging experiences for our customers in the new reality.
Marwan Hadi, Executive Vice President and Head of Retail Banking at Emirates NBD, said, “Attracting innovative start-ups is crucial to Dubai’s ambition to be an international leader in the metaverse. As a leader in the region’s banking sector, Emirates NBD has always been a front-runner of digital innovation, looking to experiment and partner with tech start-ups who can help us accelerate our transformation journey and develop solutions that optimise customer experience. With our entry into the metaverse, we seek to reimagine financial services using extended reality and create compelling new propositions for our customers in the new metaverse economy.”
Raja Al Mazrouei, Executive Vice President of DIFC FinTech Hive, said, “We are pleased to collaborate with Emirates NBD to launch the global accelerator programme for metaverse start-ups, which are growing rapidly and witnessing increasing interest from around the world. This step reaffirms our commitment to support Dubai’s ambition to be among the top ten metaverse economies in the world. At DIFC FinTech Hive, we continue to adopt latest technologies to keep pace with the rising momentum in the global digital space.”
Naim Yazbeck, General Manager at Microsoft UAE, said, “In the metaverse, where physical and digital worlds come together to create an entirely new platform layer, we have an exciting opportunity to create transformative solutions that completely revolutionise the journeys and experiences of consumers.”
