Deloitte: 82% of Surveyed Banking Customers in the Middle East Willing to Start Using FinTech Solutions

Deloitte releases its 2020 Middle East Fintech Study

Deloitte has just released its inaugural edition of the Middle East FinTech study to shed light on one of the world’s highest-potential ecosystems and to serve as a decision-making tool for banking executives, regulators, and FinTech practitioners. The new report captures the point of view of digital leaders as well as that of Middle East banking customers.

“We hope to provide insights that increase transparency on the evolution of the Middle East FinTech ecosystem, and to strengthen the cooperation between banks and FinTechs, enabling banks to offer their customers innovative value propositions,” said Rushdi Duqah, Deloitte Middle East Digital Leader.

The Deloitte study gathered input from 1,500 banking customers and more than 50 digital leaders from KSA, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan and finds that there is limited alignment between customer expectations and bank offerings and the FinTech ecosystem in the Middle East is characterized by a certain degree of contradiction and dichotomy.

Key findings of the report include:

• The ecosystem is evolving rapidly when it comes to deploying innovative solutions, however it is struggling to attract additional financing that will boost its footprint and impact.
• Banks are keen to engage with FinTechs in a broad range of exploratory projects, however, they are reluctant to integrate FinTechs into their strategy, as they prefer to follow a “wait and see” approach.
• Customer behavior across the Middle East, especially in KSA, is characterized by a willingness to adopt innovative solutions offered by banks; in particular, when it comes to peer-to-peer money transfers, account aggregation and automated investment advice.
• Banks are not leveraging the full suite of FinTech solutions/features to address customers’ needs and requirements to enhance the daily  banking journey and experience.
• 25% of Middle East banking customers surveyed are aware they are using FinTech solutions.
• 82% of Middle East banking customers surveyed are willing to start using FinTech solutions however only 22% of Middle East banking customer use FinTech solutions today; there is a significant growth potential to address this gap.

“The way forward for the Middle East FinTech Ecosystem to reach its full potential goes through regulatory harmonization and development of strategic partnership between Banks and FinTechs,” concluded Anthony Yazitzis, Financial Services and FinTech Partner, Deloitte Middle East.