Doha: Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) successfully organised a line-up of engaging virtual events spanning across three days including the 2020 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the World Alliance of International Financial Centers (WAIFC). The diverse engagements witnessed a record attendance of over 1,000 attendees in addition to the participation of all 17 International Financial Centres members.
Marking the first time ever Qatar hosted the WAIFC AGM, the full-fledged comprehensive programme consisted of three webinars and a forum, which showcased Qatar’s strategic role in driving economic recovery post COVID-19 in the region and beyond. It also leveraged the country’s state-of-the-art technology eco-system and the QFC’s innovative digital landscape, which provided a dynamic platform to senior officials and high-level experts from over 25 countries to engage in thought-provoking discussions.
QFC Chief Marketing Officer, Sarah Al Dorani said: “We are pleased to have hosted this AGM for the first time since gaining our membership last year.Hosting this event virtually enabled us to overcome the current global travel restrictions and provided participants with an optimum networking and engaging digital experience. We hope that this will be one of many events that we will host with the WAIFC, both virtually and in Qatar.” The first day kicked off with two key webinars, including a ‘Getting to Know Qatar’ segment that introduced the high-level guests to Qatar’s bourgeoning business ecosystem and exhibited the country’s rising FinTech landscape with interactive activities run by the Qatar FinTech Hub and SkipCash, a leading Qatari FinTech firm. The webinar featured Yousuf Mohamed Al Jaida, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member at QFC; Al Dorani; Georges Fouad Salem, Business Intelligence Manager at Qatar Development Bank; Henk J Hoogendoorn, Managing Director at QFC's Financial Sector Office; and Mohammed Aldelaimi, Co-Founder and Managing Director at SkipCash.
The second webinar, entitled ‘Economic Recovery from the Pandemic’ set the stage for renowned speakers from WAIFC’s member international financial centres to identify how to re-engineer key areas of national economies.
A ‘WAIFC Technology and Innovation Forum’ focused on technology and digital innovation as catalysts to economic recovery was also hosted by the QFC in collaboration with Moscow International Financial Centre and the WAIFC.
The forum was joined by Al Jaida alongside Arnaud de Bresson, CEO and Managing Director at Paris Europlace, and Chairman of WAIFC; Alexander Voloshin, CEO at Moscow International Finance Centre; Wayne Evans, Managing Director at International Trade and Investment, TheCityUK; and Jennifer Reynolds, President & CEO, at Toronto Finance International.
Concluding the three-day programme, the QFC tapped into one of the current most trending global economic developments – the rise of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Co-hosted with PwC Switzerland, the final webinar, entitled ‘Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC): Key Developments and Relevance in the Post COVID-19 Monetary Environment’, highlighted how the accelerated digitisation of commerce, trade, government, health care and financial services is reshaping the monetary environment.
The discussion was led by Jiazhong Wang, Vice President-Financial Services Asia Market at QFC's Financial Sector Office; Klaus Loeber, Head of the Oversight Division at European Central Bank; Douglas Arner, Kerry Holdings Professor in Law and Expert on Financial Regulation at University of Hong Kong; Dr. Antonios Koumbarakis, Head Strategic Regulatory & Sustainability Services, Legal, at PwC Switzerland; and Dr. Jochen Biedermann, Managing Director of WAIFC.
