January 27 , 2025
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good morning and welcome to the Arab Payment Week 2025!
Last week marked my fifth anniversary at Buna. If, when a received the contract proposal, someone would have told me that five years later, we will be organizing the second edition of the Arab Payment Week and having this room filled, I would have signed up even quicker, in less than the thirty minutes that I took at that time. My conviction was already strong that it was the right move, and that Buna is a great initiative worth investing in.
In fact, when I decided to join Buna, I didn’t have an accurate view of the status and the progress of the initiative. I learned only upon arriving in Abu Dhabi that the organization had only one employee – my dedicated assistant who continues to support me today – and that the system was ready for live deployment within the next month… But I knew two very important aspects. I knew that, thanks to the diligent efforts of my colleagues at the Arab Monetary Fund and the support they received from the Central Banks, Buna had very solid foundation in terms of legal construction, systems design, operating model, compliance framework and corporate governance, and drawing from my previous experience in Europe, I knew that delivering a regional initiative is always a very lengthy and demanding work.
Implementing a regional initiative such as Buna and making it successful necessitates much more than having the stakeholders subscribing to the idea, encouraging its implementation or making use of the supplied service. It requires that different countries and different types of entities join forces and collaborate towards a common objective. It requires the firm conviction that building something together, in this instance a multilateral cross-border and muti currency payment system, despite the challenges that it entails and the concessions that it may require will always be much more powerful and serve all the members of the community much better than what could be achieved by each one of them independently. Such an alignment cannot be realized overnight and the path to success will always be a slow and bumpy road, especially in the intricate payments industry.
Payments hold strategic importance for governments, they are critical for businesses and vital for individuals. Ensuring safe and efficient payments requires striking the right balance between regulation and fostering free competition and innovation. Considering that the payment industry is also an industry of network. A strong and efficient payment industry depends on the scale and cohesion of the network composed of various payment ecosystem members. This necessitates collaboration among these components to be achieved. In such a context, for most of the payment ecosystem elements, prioritizing investments in enhancing shared value for the collective benefit over competing with fellow members to maximize personal gain will always be subject to a difficult call, even within domestic markets and significantly more in a cross-border environment. Yet, while competition is essential and beneficial, good business also requires harbors for cooperation and aligned multilateral actions. This is what Buna is about!
In just a few years Buna gained local and international recognition as a benchmark solution to enhance cross-border payments and make them faster, less expensive, more transparent and easier to access. Concurrently, our financial performance has demonstrated steady growth, and breakeven point has been reaffirmed around 2028. Despite the pride that we take in these achievements, we haven’t claimed victory yet, as we know that there is still much more that we should and can realize. However, the presence of all of you here today, as part of the Arab Payment Week, represents a compelling evidence that our impact is starting to be tangible and irreversible.
We designed the Arab Payment Week at the image of Buna, an event bringing the Arab region together and connecting it with its global partners. It serves as a forum for exchange and collaboration, dedicated to delivering tangible value to a cohesive and vibrant community. We structured the program around three key pillars of the industry: operation, regulation and innovation. The first day of the event will focus on business and operation related topics, followed by payments regulation on the second day and concluding with the session on innovation on the third and final day. We hope that the diverse range of sessions, panels and keynote speeches will provide valuable insight and enriching knowledge.
We received very kind and encouraging feedback following last year’s edition of the Arab Payment Week. That compelled us not only to reiterate the event but also to confirm its continued relevance. Organizing the Arab Payment Week would not have been feasible without the invaluable support of our colleagues at the Arab Monetary Fund and without a committed team at Buna managing the event details while simultaneously fulfilling their primary duties of serving our participants and ensuring seamless operation of our systems. I would like to thank all of them.
I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the Governors of the Arab Central banks for their unwavering support and for being the founders of this strategic initiative. Buna would not have been possible without them.
Special thanks extend to our sponsors for their support and their trust in Buna and this event, and to all the speakers and moderators who generously invested their precious time to actively participate in the debates during this Arab Payment Week. Many thanks to all of you for your presence today. This Arab Payment Week dedicated to you and its success is achieved with your presence and collective efforts.
We encourage you to engage in networking, discussions and exchanges! Let us create an open, lively and friendly atmosphere!
Please enjoy the Arab Payment Week 2025!
