Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) has picked 11 companies it has shortlisted for its first FinTech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge.
The organisation, which is running the contest alongside accountancy firm KPMG, said that a panel of judges whittled down the 11 entrants for the programme from an initial 166 applications.
Four of the finalists taking part are from Singapore, two are from India, while there is one each from Hong Kong, China, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Canada. They will be challenged to solve problems across six main areas - financial and investment management, financial inclusion, regulatory technology, insurance technology, trade finance and private capital markets.
ADGM said the firms from around the world are already taking part in an intensive, five-week programme that began on Sunday.
They will work with mentors drawn from an expert pool of financial industry leaders and will present at a Fintech Demo Day in late October, with two winners then being sponsored for a place at a Global FinTech Hackcelerator event in Singapore in November.
The UAE-based company chosen to take part is Newbridge Fintech (Fundshop), which is a piece of software that private banks can use to automatically choose suitable portfolio assets for private clients.
Other finalists include an artificial intelligence system from Singapore built to think like an analyst by rapidly assessing and evaluating relevant data known as Silent Eight, a UK-based system that can help migrate paper documents onto a digital global ledger for blockchain purposes known as Everledger, an Indian technology allowing customers to open bank accounts from their home using only a mobile phone by a company called FRS Labs and a Canadian app called Market IQ allowing customers to access all of their bank accounts, credit card, insurance and other financial data in one place.
Wai Lum Kwok, executive director of capital markets for ADGM's financial services regulatory authority, said: "We are delighted with the high calibre of entrants that we have received from some of the most promising fintech practitioners in the industry.”
Last month, Dubai International Financial Centre announced that it had chosen 11 firms to take part in its first fintech accelerator programme, known as The Hive.
Its finalists include a UAE-based company that is developing a system to send and receive money while offline, known as Bridg, a Shariah-compliant peer-to-peer financing network from Azerbaijan known as Maliyya and a Singapore-based robo-advisory wealth management product called WeInvest.