Changes in global trade trends and the decline of cash-dominated economies have bolstered the digitalisation of money and payments across the Arab world. However, payment and market infrastructures remain fragmented, making intraregional integration across wholesale and retail payments vital to supporting innovation and economic growth.

OMFIF's Digital Monetary Institute and the Arab Monetary Fund are convening the ‘Spearheading digital innovation and cross-border payments: The Arab CBDC conference’. Key points of discussion will include national retail payment strategies and the unbundling of banking services, CBDC developments in the region, innovations in cross-border interbank payments and the crypto asset landscape.

This regional conference comes after the inaugural DMI symposium in April. The symposium brought together 115 central banks from across the world with over 2,000 attendees. The DMI is now the world’s leading independent platform for convening central banks on CBDCs, digital payments, distributed ledger technology and related digital finance topics.