The diversity of culture, a lack of technological infrastructure, poverty and a host of socio-economic issues present a unique set of challenges for banking in Arabia. There are two ways of looking at these challenges: as problems or as unique opportunities. Anyone can identify a specific problem such as banking for non-readers, or baking without changing interest; most people can see a solution, but they often lack access to resources to make a significant impact on these problems. Consequently, many people opt for a conservative posture of reserved detachment by focusing on the minimum acceptable level of progress. It is rare that individuals should actually see problems as challenges with viable solutions. As Middle Eastern bankers and specialists in Middle Eastern banking, we can turn what others see as problems into new opportunities to engage customers, facilitate commerce, provide financial services to people at all socio-economic levels. 

Innovation Arabia is a business-government partnership to capitalize on nations’ most abundant and most valued natural resource: human capital. The program, organized as a series of high intensity think tanks, engages members of the financial community, governments, NGOs, universities, businesses and citizens of a nation state to address and subsequently solve specific economic problems.

The primary goals of this program are to:

1- bring world authorities on Middle Eastern economy and global economy together with national experts to develop specific strategies for economic transformation;

2 - initiate new levels of economic growth by providing governments, businesses and NGOs with actionable strategies that have clearly measurable results;

3 - structure action plans that can be implemented in 3, 6, and 12 month cycles;

4 - inform and motivate key decision makers towards understanding the best practices in technology use and management, current trends in technological evolution and societal adoption of technology;

5 - propose solutions to key challenges and the issues arising from instituting economic initiatives at the national level.