Ep. 96: Amir Tabch - Tapping Into FinTech in the Middle East

11/05/20 • 30 min

Contact Amir Tabch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amir-tabch/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:00)
Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. In this special new episode, my co-host Rouba dives into the world of FinTech in the Middle East region through an elaborate discussion with Amir Tabch. Amir has close to two decades of experience as a finance professional advisory board member for multinational companies in various FinTech and wealth tech initiatives. This conversation features the state of the sector in the region, and Amir explains how finance and accounting professionals can leverage these technologies to better support their organizations. Keep listening as we head over to their conversation now.
Rouba: (00:47)
I mean, you're someone who's acquired a successful career mainly because of your ability to read the trends and the patterns with passion. I mean, looking at the chart, I remember it, one of the stories was that whether it was your wife's contraction monitor or a financial chart, you have an eye for seeing the patterns behind the, when they manifest. So you pride yourself on looking past the complexity to see the certainty. How does one develop such an outlook, especially at a critical time, like now where God knows where the global economy is headed and trends are being accelerated or even annihilated , in some cases overnight?
Amir: (01:26)
Well, as much as I'd like to claim that identifying trends and patterns and forecasting is an inherent skill, it really isn't. Of course, on the other hand the creation is. Now there are essentially a lot of things that can take credit for being responsible when it comes to analyzing these prices and trends and patterns either when one's inspecting them in isolation or in totality. So, first of all, when it comes to looking at trends and patterns, it goes without saying that these analytical skills need to be honed. So one has to be in touch with market realities. We have to also look at human behavior industry changes, social and economic forces, and no amount of experience in the industry can make up for constant and consistent research. To be ever updated and in touch, not just with the events they can place in our industry, but all other events, whether it's culture, whether it's fashion. And the point I mentioned earlier, which is inclination. So being inquisitive by nature allowed me to always look beyond the final results and really go into these matters of causation behind those results. That being said, all who believed that being a man of numbers, someone like me, boring is not really accurate, To be able to analyze these trends and immediately place the ones that are not in tandem with the market environment, which requires an extremely creative bent of mind. You have to be able to think outside the box when predicting matters of extreme relevance. And one also needs to be very well versed with consumer behavior and producer behavior trends that are a consequence of human psychology. And you have to have an approachable and inclusive outlook to things which allows you more room to acknowledge the possible mistakes and even benefit in detecting trends that would otherwise go unnoticed. And like you said, in such uncertain times, the only thing we can be certain of is the constant, unpredictable nature of things. And that's when we look at these trends and these patterns and these price formations, we can only doing so by living in the moment. And that is something I learned from, from Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda, one of my son's favorite movies. He said, yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present. So Master Oogway a fantastic follower and really good at pattern. So basically living in the moment.
Rouba: (04:23)
If we were to look at this particular area, which is your area of expertise and, you know, something that's been on an evolutionary scale for the past three decades, we see most of e-trading online banking and wealth tech driving it, but there's a recent report by KPMG that stated that over $135 billion were invested in FinTech last year globally. And, that the transactional transaction value is expected to grow to some $10 trillion in 2023. The Middle East financial services revenue will account for 8% of these figures. So experts find that this growth is directly related to the increasing number of FinTech, startups, growth of the Islamic banking sector and the high mobile penetration, which is above the entire planet. I mean the UAE loan has 173% So the UAE also accounts for one third of the total number of FinTech startups. We talk about 46% in the world, but in your opinion, what is really driving such an exponential growth?
Amir: (05:29)
Well, the underlyin...

Contact Amir Tabch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amir-tabch/

Previous Episode

Ep. 95: Brad Ledford - What Does the Job Market Look Like Now?

About Brad Ledford: https://www.dhg.com/people/userid/278?filter=bledford
Contact Brad Ledford: [email protected]
or https://www.linkedin.com/in/expertrecruiterbradledford/

DHG Search:https://www.dhgsearch.com/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Adam: (00:00)
Welcome back to episode 95 of Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host Adam Larson, and I'm here to preview today's conversation and introduce our featured guest speaker, Brad Ledford. My cohost Mitch talked to Brad about the changing job market and the new norms and job seeking, interviewing and hiring. Brad is the President of DHG Search, where he provides advisory and recruiting services for candidates in finance, accounting, audit and tax. In this episode, he explains what recruiting looks like today and describe some new opportunities in the workforce to hear a great career-related discussion, keep listening as we head over the conversation now.
Mitch: (00:48)
So Brad, to start in broad terms, from what you've seen, how has the job market really changed over the last six months? How did companies change their approach for hiring? What did the overall job availability look like? You know, just from your perspective, what has this last few months done for the job market?
Brad: (01:09)
Yeah. Great question, and there's no doubt, it looks different. The one thing the unemployment rate has jumped from 2.4% approximately now up to 8.4%, and that's down to slightly where it was maybe just just a few weeks ago. So that, that right there in itself is a very good indicator of some significant change in the job market. And what I saw during that window, as COVID-19 started to impact the marketplace, were companies really pushing the pause button or, in some cases, opportunities just drying up. And really from that, I'd say that March to May or February to June window is where that started to really show,and of course, unemployment rates started to spike. You then saw in that same window of times, companies starting to lag their process or slow their process significantly. Even if they already had just started a search or recruiting process. So a lot of times individuals would be, in the beginning stages and all of a sudden feel like, Hey we're where did that search go? Where does that process, end up and companies were kind of, Hey, wait and see mode during that window. And then some just really were not interested at all in hiring, during this last six months. So you've seen a little bit of pockets in both areas where, you know, some companies are starting to come back, but, you know, from that last six months, we've, we've seen a big change and, and how, the market has been impacted. And then part is your second question, I guess, how the companies approach hiring and what does it mean to overall job availability? You know, I think companies started to realize there are some candidates coming on to the marketplace and then they started looking at their job profile and their role and what they needed. And what I saw was companies starting to add more boxes to the checklist that they needed. So instead of it being, Hey, at 2.4, under 3% unemployment, and if these people had these couple of things and then this good accounting skills or certification or background, it jumped to, wow, I need these 10 things checked and their background to consider them for the position. So it really did change how companies were approaching, hiring, and then also, you know, availability, job availability changed. Now I'll also say it was interesting that there was, there was some organizations that looked at this as a scenario of, hey, there's an opportunity to add resumes to their database or add connections or contacts. And so you may have still saw some folks, I guess, taking candidates, but it just, it just slowed significantly.
Mitch: (04:19)
So our listeners, accounting and finance professionals, they span many industries, and I'm just curious again, from what you've seen, are there particular industries that remain more active or even successful in hiring through this? And then I'd like to get your thoughts on the opposite as well. Are there any roles or industries that really suffered more because of the change in the hiring process and the availability and everything you just mentioned?
Brad: (04:47)
Yeah. Great, great question. At the firm, I'm part of Dixon Hughes Goodman, and the team I lead within DHG Search. We go to market as an industry and service specialists, of course. And so that industry piece was very important that we had a wide...

Next Episode

Ep. 97: Eli Amdur - Explaining What Today's Business Environment Means for Your Personal Development

Contact Eli Amdur: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliamdur/
Email Eli Amdur: [email protected]

Eli Amdur Website and Contact info: http://eliamdur.com/
Eli's Blog: http://eliamdur.com/index.php/blog/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:05)
Welcome back for episode 97 of Count Me iIn, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and I'm happy to bring you our latest episode on the work environment and personal development, Eli Amdur, Career and Executive coach, Journalist, and Keynote Speaker, joined my cohost Mitch to talk about recent business decisions, what they've meant to those in the workforce and what individuals can do to best prepare themselves for the future. I'm sure you will enjoy this conversation. So let's go listen.
Mitch: (00:34)
What is your perspective on the current business environment and how would you rate businesses in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Eli: (00:51)
Mitch, good question. First, let me say, thanks for inviting me here. I'm happy to be with you and your membership. Current business environment, for sure, it's unlike any we've ever experienced. It's, it's being, it's being influenced by as many serious, conditions as has ever existed together at one time in an economic meltdown, massive job losses, COVID-19 social and racial and gender unrest. We're doing, we're experiencing as much as we've ever experienced before. What I'm afraid of is knee jerk reactions on the parts of employers, entire industries, even government agencies, but it's, it's natural, but it's something that I think is way overboard. For instance, the thing about working remote. Well, we didn't have a choice on that. We understand that. And having technology that permits us to do it is a pretty awesome thing, but companies already having said that we're going to work remote until 2022. They're getting out of lease deals, they're selling office space. I think they're making decisions that one day soon, they're going to be kind of sorry, they've made as, as suddenly, and as, I should say thoughtlessly as they have made them. I don't think enough thought has gone into it.
Mitch: (02:37)
Well, what are the potential outcomes of these decisions? You know, it's something you're afraid of. It. It might be a little thoughtlessness, but you know, as far as businesses and their sustainability longevity, why might these decisions may not be the best ones for the business?
Eli: (02:52)
That's a, that's a great question, and I think it's because we're reacting to things we can see immediately. We're not holding off on our decisions. You know, I'm very fond of saying, and I've said this for many years, going way, way back to like corporate leadership roles. That if we thought about the consequences of our decisions before we made them, we would make better decisions. So yeah, COVID hits and we got to get everybody out of each other's ways. Otherwise the transmission of the disease will be increasing, which it is now anyway, as you know, but the things we can't see are things that have now become a little clearer to a lot of people, both workers and leaders, and decision-makers in organizations. And that is that we're missing the interpersonal connections that we so very much we rely on and enjoy during our work days and our careers. We are social creatures. We rely on belonging to groups. In human history, those groups have taken all kinds of shapes, like a corporate division of religion, a fan club, a, a community we need that. It is one of the most basic of all human needs. Abraham Maslow pointed that asked to us very well. Once we get done with our physiological needs, for food, clothing, and shelter and things like that, and our longer term security needs the most basic need of all his belongings. We're missing that, people are lonely. They don't like being alone. They want to be part of a team where somebody slapped somebody on the back or shakes hands and nods approval in a conference room. And those, the lack of those things tend to decrease the effectiveness and the efficiency of performance, but not, not enough companies are realizing that yet. There's still an element of their technology and their ability to work remotely.
Mitch: (05:00)
Now, obviously there are circumstances that are preventing businesses from reopening and people being able to gather in the manner that you're discussing. there are going to obviously be those who have their concerns going forward. Long-term so what can businesses do? How can businesses accommodate the needs of the human being of their employees, keeping in mind their safety, most importantly, but al...