The Rise of Fintech in UAE and Saudi Arabia: Assessing Its Impact on Banking Performance and Identifying the Region’s Fintech Leader

Saib Fakhar (), Suha Bilquis and Wajid Ali ()
Additional contact information
Saib Fakhar: New Delhi Institute of Management
Suha Bilquis: Aligarh Muslim University
Wajid Ali: Fortune Institute of International Business

Chapter 4 in Digital Finance and Transformation in the Gulf, 2026, pp 81-103 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates the influence of fintech on banking performance in GCC nations, evaluating critical criteria including ROA, ROE, and Net Interest Margin. Study has taken UAE and Saudi Arabia and data is collected Bloomberg terminal and also Statista and Crunchbase platform is used for data collection. The data collection period is 2014 to 2024. Simple OLS regression is applied and influence of FinTech is observed on banking performance variable like ROA, ROE AND NIM. Control variables are also used some are bank specific and other are macro-specific. Quantile regression offers a more comprehensive and detailed insight into fintech's influence on banking performance in the GCC. The results are significant as all variable of bank performance negatively affected by the rise of FinTech. Banks are advised to actively invest in FinTech startups and also engaged in partnership to avoid risk of disruption. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have become the most prominent fintech centres in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as of 2025. With the help of aggressive regulatory frameworks, large investments, and an increase in creative entrepreneurs, both nations have made great progress in creating strong fintech ecosystems.

Keywords: Fintech; GCC; Banking; Panel data; Bank performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-92-1588-1_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789819215881

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-92-1588-1_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().