Abu Dhabi wants to poach the best fintech talent from Asia

An international financial centre called the Abu Dhabi Global Market is on a global tour to find exciting fintech startups across the world’s major cities, including Singapore, Shenzhen and Beijing. It recently announced it was adding more cities to the tour, taking its total to 18.

While this sounds like positive news for fintech startups and talent working in the sector, it will come as a headache to Asian-based technology companies who are already struggling to find fintech talent.

Abu Dhabi Global Market describes itself as ‘’an award-winning International Financial Centre strategically located in the Capital of the United Arab Emirates’’. The hub was launched in October 2015 and has been gaining recognition for its business-friendly ecosystem.

This is very similar to how Singapore positions itself to technology talent, entrepreneurs and start-ups. The Asian city state also has ambitious plans to become a major fintech hub.

Selected winners of Abu Dhabi’s FinTechAD Innovation Challenge will be given the opportunity to relocate their business to Dubai and qualify for various funding programmes and collaborative projects. They will be based in Hub71 – the tech hub in the Abu Dhabi Global Market. Singapore’s tech startup hub is called Block71.