JEDDAH, 18 November 2004 — Over 80 exhibitors and a number of banking and finance sector professionals from more than 20 countries are scheduled to attend the Middle East Financial Technology Exhibition & Conference (MEFTEC 2004) from Nov. 22- 24 at the Bahrain International Exhibition Center. The event will showcase specialized IT solutions for the banking and finance sectors and is being held under the patronage of Shaikh Ahmed ibn Mohammed Al-Khalifa, governor of the Bahrain Monetary Agency (BMA).
The broad spectrum of offerings will include cutting-edge solutions for branch automation, self-service delivery channels, business continuity & disaster recovery, IT security, IT and business process outsourcing, business intelligence, risk management, cards and payments, clearing & settlement, wealth management and Islamic finance.
“At long last, the Middle East’s financial services industry has an event dedicated to its specialized technology needs,” said Paul Stott, managing director of UK-based Media Generation Exhibitions Ltd., the event’s organizers who are working with the Bahrain Convention & Exhibition Bureau. “MEFTEC is designed to replace the need for the region’s financial houses to attend generic IT trade shows. Instead, industry leaders can now gather at this highly focused, vertical trade event and review all their technology needs at one time.” The exhibitors come from the United Kingdom, US, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan, Greece, India, Cyprus, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Egypt and Pakistan.
“We are overwhelmed with the response MEFTEC has generated among the leading regional and international IT players. The exhibition was sold out well in advance of schedule, and we already have a long waiting list of clients for the second edition of the event,” added Stott.
“The success of MEFTEC is largely driven by booming demand for specialized financial services technologies in the Middle East. According to Dubai-based Madar Research, the region’s banks and financial institutions spent close to $1 billion on technology in 2003, and this spending is expected to register continued growth over the next several years. It is a defining time for the industry, and that makes this month’s MEFTEC even more significant,” he said.
MEFTEC is expected to draw senior decision-makers from the top 100 financial institutions across the Middle East and North Africa.
Running parallel with the exhibition is an industry-leading strategic IT conference “Winning with Technology” which features more than 30 high-level speakers from 12 countries. The conference has high-level support from the BMA as strategic sponsor of MEFTEC and Bahrain’s Economic Development Board as well as from many industry trade bodies and publications.
The BMA is the regulator of Bahrain’s financial services sector, which includes a total of 364 institutions, the largest single concentration of financial institutions in the Middle East.
Microsoft Corporation is the Platinum Sponsor of MEFTEC. Other major sponsors include SAP Arabia, Reuters, Atos Origin, Misys, Temenos, Naizak, Hitachi Data Systems, Giesecke & Devrient, Polaris, Tata Consultancy Services, SAS, eHosting Datafort, Accpac, Avaya and i-flex Solutions.
