After two successful Summits in Zurich, Switzerland, the Responsible Finance & Investment Foundation and Swiss Arab Network, will hold the RFI Summit 2019 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. It will be held at Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), a broad-based international financial centre for local, regional and international institutions with three independent authorities – the Registration Authority, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority and ADGM Courts.  

The RFI Summit 2019 will build on its mission to bring together leaders from Islamic finance and other parts of responsible finance to a showcase of the leading examples of how responsible finance addresses the Sustainable Development Goals. It will offer continuity from RFI Summit 2018 in presenting specific case studies of responsible finance to show how responsible finance principles translate into practice both within conventional and Islamic finance.

The RFI Summit 2018 hosted the Support Disruption for Good Challenge and recognised three winners who used innovative technology to address issues relating to healthcare (Aid:TECH), agriculture (INBONIS) and sustainable cities (thirdACT).

The RFI Summit 2019 will build on the theme of “Impact Finance and Technology” showcasing examples of how technology combined with responsible finance can complement one another. There is a significant opportunity for the financial sector in working together to address major global challenges outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. In order to achieve these global goals, the process of raising and deploying capital as well as the prudent management of risk has to change. It must support sustainable and long-term economic growth that benefits current and future generations.

Blake Goud, CEO of RFI Foundation commented: “Within the Middle East and North Africa, Abu Dhabi has set a high ambition for sustainable finance and FinTech, which we believe are key parts of the future of finance. As a result of ADGM’s sustainable finance ambition announced in November 2018, and their active FinTech sandbox that has promoted innovation, we believe Abu Dhabi is the right place to bring the RFI Summit into the Middle East. It builds on the cooperation we began with ADGM under an MOU on ethical, responsible and Islamic FinTech.”

Mounir Khouzami, Executive Board Member, Chairman of the Advisory Board and Co-Founder of Swiss Arab Network said: “During the past two years, the RFI Summit has brought together leading institutions in Islamic finance and responsible finance. We have launched new research and shown the way forward with the Support Disruption for Good Challenge. A roundtable held at the RFI Summit 2018 led to the creation of the CDIT Initiative, an innovative responsible finance initiative that was announced at an event on the sidelines of the G20 in Buenos Aires, Argentina in September 2018 showing the impact of the Summit in generating new initiatives for the organisers and industry stakeholders to take forward.”

For more information about the RFI Summit 2019, please visit www.rfisummit.org.

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