Emirates NBD Group, Dubai’s government-owned bank and one of the largest banking groups in the Middle East in terms of assets, is positioning itself as a leader in fintech innovation across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), leveraging innovation and partnerships to improve operational efficiencies and enhance customer experiences.

A May 2025 report by Emirates NBD and PwC Middle East outlines the bank’s fintech strategy, highlighting the group’s multi-pronged approach, which centered on partnering with fintechs and tech firms, developing in-house digital solutions, deploying corporate venture capital (CVC) investments, and nurturing local talent.

Emirates NBD’s fintech strategy

Emirates NBD’s fintech strategy build on a one-billion-dirham digital transformation program, launched in 2016. This multi-year initiative aims to establish the bank as a regional leader in digital banking, as well as improve customer acquisition, and service quality.

At the heart of this strategy is collaborative innovation. Through the Emirates NBD Innovation Fund, which was established in early 2023 as the group’s CVC fund, the bank invests in companies with strategic relevance to the group across its countries of presence, focusing on early to growth stage fintech, banktech or enterprise tech companies, and their sub verticals.

As of 2024, the US$100 million fund had already deployed 34% of its capital across a diverse and global portfolio of ten companies spanning sustainable finance, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics, AI and machine learning (ML) securitization, blockchain payments infrastructure, digital asset custody, digital trade, institutional asset and liability deal automation and workplace savings platforms. Seven new investments were made in 2024, with several portfolio companies already integrated into bank operations.

Notable fintech partnerships

Emirates NBD’s approach to fintech also relies on industry collaborations. Rather than seeing fintech startups as competitors, the bank has set up a dedicated Digital Innovation and Partnerships unit to proactively engage with the fintech ecosystem. This unit has played a key role in shaping several high-impact alliances.

One notable example is Emirates NBD’s partnership with Appro, a fintech platform launched by SC Ventures to enhance its retail banking onboarding. By integrating Appro into its retail banking operations, Emirates NBD has significantly streamlined customer onboarding, enhanced efficiency, and reduced fraud risk through standardized checks.

Another notable collaboration is with Partior, a distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based network co-founded by DBS, J.P. Morgan, and Temasek. Partior enables realtime, atomic settlement of cross-border payments and foreign exchange across participating banks, using a shared ledger infrastructure that eliminates reconciliation and reduces settlement risk. This partnership has allowed Emirates NBD to test real-time cross-border settlements, unlock liquidity trapped in nostro accounts, and enhance transparency for both corporate and institutional clients.

Further strengthening its ecosystem approach, Emirates NBD has also partnered with the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) to integrate the Dubai Unified License (DUL) into its business banking services. This collaboration enables seamless application programming interface (API) integration between Emirates NBD’s digital onboarding platform and the DUL system, allowing the bank to retrieve verified trade license data and documentation, significantly reducing manual processes and expediting account opening for new businesses.

Emirates NBD Group has forged more than 10 strategic fintech partnerships over the past 24 months, and incubated 17 Emirati startups within just 18 months.

The bank claims that these initiatives have contributed to its double-digit revenue growth, improved cost-to-income ratios and driven industry-leading customer experience metrics.

Harnessing AI for improved operational efficiencies

AI is another key enabler in Emirates NBD’s transformation journey. The bank has implemented a number of AI-driven initiatives to streamline operations, improve research capabilities, and enhance compliance.

For example, Emirates NBD Capital, the group’s investment banking arm, is partnered with AlphaSense, an AI-powered search and intelligence platform. By integratingAlphaSense, the bank’s research and front-office teams are able to quickly find insights from millions of documents, including broker research, earnings transcripts, SEC filings, news, and proprietary content, reducing analysts’ research time by over 50% while ensuring they don’t miss key signals.

To enhance efficiency and accuracy in its financial crime compliance, Emirates NBD is collaborating with Silent Eight, an AI-powered solution for automating financial crime compliance investigations. By integrating Silent Eight’s platform, Emirates NBD has significantly reduced false positives, sped up case resolutions, and improved the consistency and transparency of compliance decisions.

Fintech in the UAE has grown dramatically over the past years. Our 2024 UAE Fintech Report, released in late 2024, identified 329 active fintech companies operating in the UAE, up from just 144 companies in our 2021 analysis. The figure marks a 128.5% increase, reflecting a rapid influx of new ventures and increased diversification of subsectors.

Key fintech highlights last year include a surge in digital banking usage, increased adoption of cashless transactions, and regulatory advancements in areas including digital assets and open finance.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Middle East, based on image by sodawhiskey via Freepik