According to H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s vision, the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) today launched its Financial Infrastructure Transformation Programme (FIT programme) to speed up the digital transformation in the financial services sector as part of a larger strategy aimed at enabling the CBUAE to be among the top central banks globally.
Through encouraging innovation and collaboration as well as competition in the financial sector, the FIT Programme seeks to support the financial services sector, promote digital transactions, and enable the UAE’s competitiveness to become the financial and digital payment hub and a centre of excellence for innovation and digital transformation.
The nine initiatives of the FIT programme
According to a statement released by the central bank, the initiatives of the FIT Programme are:
1. Card Domestic Scheme: The UAE’s first unified, secured, and efficient card payment platform to facilitate the growth of e-commerce and digital transactions in the country.
2. eKYC: A secure and user-friendly platform to facilitate non-face-to-face customer onboarding and ongoing customer due diligence.
3. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC): CBDC for both cross-border payments and domestic usage in order to address the problems and inefficiency of cross-border payments and help drive innovation for domestic payments respectively.
4. Open finance: Driving innovation and competitiveness as well as collaboration in the financial services sector through inter-connectivity and inter-operability among all players and institutions.
5. Supervisory technology (SupTech): Advanced suptech supporting the regulatory and supervisory processes.
6. Innovation hub: A collaborative platform for engagement, research and development for fintech.
7. Instant payments platform: A secure, efficient, and robust payment platform that will support financial inclusion and enable a cashless society through digital payments.
8. Financial cloud: A secure, resilient, scalable, and reliable sovereign financial infrastructure.
9. Excellence and customer experience: Supporting exceptional customer experiences and fostering a culture of excellence across the financial sector.
