The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the adoption of modern technologies with businesses going online due to the changing buying behaviour of customers. During the Gulf Blockchain Summit in Dubai on Monday, experts discussed the new digital era and emergence of disruptive technologies as facilitated by repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to experts, Gulf states have been able to adopt to the changing industrial climate and develop advanced technological infrastructure through the help of extensive research and utilising real life cases.

“Since the start of the pandemic, the Gulf has really shown a leadership position in bringing together a central point as a blockchain hub. The reality is that the ecosystem has really been the strategic foresight over many years,” said Juwan Lee, chairman of NexChange Group during the summit.

Experts also underlined how the countries like the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia have been at the forefront of the region’s blockchain research and implementation of the technology across banking and financial services, supply chain management and education sector. In April 2018, the UAE Government launched the Emirates Blockchain Strategy 2021 with the aim of capitalising on blockchain technology to transition 50 percent of the government’s transactions into the blockchain platform by the year 2021.

Experts have also noted that the technology will help key sectors in saving time, resources and efforts in processing timely transactions according to lifestyle and work. With the adoption of blockchain technology, the UAE government is expecting to save more than Dh11 billion in transactions and documents processed routinely along with at least 77 million work hours every year.

Speaking about the technology, Katie Lau, director of European and American Regions, Key Account, Huobi Global, said that the pandemic has stepped up the development of blockchain, thereby resulting in a huge wave of businesses taking their operations online.

“The pandemic also had a major impact on people’s spending habits online and the demand for e-payments, in particular surged during the lockdowns,” Lau added.

Noting the data of Gen Z, Gen X, and millennials, about 61 percent are highly-likely to switch to a fully digital bank in the coming period for various services including 24/7 accessibility to banking, remote banking and ease of transactions. She also highlighted that rapid digital interactions are swiftly becoming important factors for young consumers during banking options. This is one of the reasons why they are willing to switch from traditional banks to new age neo-banks to access smoother digital-only banking experience. “Neobanks, including Chime, are raising the bar for customer expectations and are increasingly making inroads into various markets around the world such as India,” she said.

She noted that the success of Bank ABC launching ila Bank in the year 2019 was boosted by customer driven first-of-its-kind digital strategy that revolutionised retail banking landscape in Bahrain as well as the region. The digital mobile-only bank won top honours- ‘Best Consumer Digital Bank’ and ‘Best Mobile Banking App’ in Bahrain at the World’s Best Consumer Digital Bank Awards in the Middle East in 2021 by Global Finance.

One of the major key trends has also been NFTs. Estelle Ohayon, CEO at NFT BAZL, termed the NFT revolution a ‘social revolution’ that has led to the success of the art market.

“Everything that we have been doing with technology has been about adding dimension to life. If you look at NFTs, it is all about adding layers and enhancing reality. We are making it deeper; we are giving people a deeper version of the physical. I think that there are no limits to what we can do,” Ohayon said.