UAE hits its digital stride in KYC and blockchain

The UAE was already a fintech pioneer but Covid turned it into a leader. Banks and government agencies are furiously rolling out blockchain-backed services that do everything from seamless KYC checks to detecting fraud in supply chain financing.

When Norbloc was founded in 2016, it took a few years to find its feet. Headquartered in Sweden, the data expert, specializing in know-your-customer (KYC) technology, set out to sell its digital wares across western Europe.

“In our early days, we worked with banks in Sweden, Norway, Belgium and Greece, and found that not an awful lot of financial digitization was going on,” says the firm’s chief executive and co-founder, Astyanax Kanakakis. “Banks were very sceptical about working with each other, even though they are symbiotic in many ways.

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