Block Bank Community update

This evening we met at a dinner exclusively for the keynote speakers and sponsors of the GCC Financial Forum which was organised by the EDB and Euromoney Instituition based in london. Amongst the key note speakers which included Lord Mervyn King, and Dr Mohamed Aly El-Erian there were senior figures from the Bahrain Central Bank and the Bahrain Financial Ministry Office, and senior bankers and financial innovators. We spoke about how we will be moving our license application forward and what we will be able to offer the region as a next gen commercial funding platform, and how Bahrain can support our project.

The Significance of Bahrain to Block Bank.

Bahrain has a strong history and reputation as a key financial centre in the Gulf. The country itself is going through a transition which is being driven by Fintech Innovation. As some of you may know we were invited to the Capital Club here in November by our advisor Angela Morrison. That was where we met with David Parker The Executive Director of Financial Services Development on the EDB. David and his team have invited us to join the EDB and incubate the Banking entity we will be registering in Bahrain.  

What does this mean? 

Well this truly is a great opportunity for us as we have been invited to a EDB accelerator program overseen by C5 Accelerate (http://www.c5accelerate.com/.) C5 Accelerate is a London, Washington D.C., and Bahrain based technology investment firm. Its mission is to accelerate best-of-breed start-ups to meet the growth opportunity being created by the geographic expansion of AWS, the world’s leading cloud computing platform.The support on offer with C5 will be increbily valuable to our projects development and help secure a solid foundation on which to build in this region. 

How will this benefit Block Bank and our community?

The approach from the regulators and the EDB mean that Block Bank will get a direct line of contact with the central bank of Bahrain as well as infrastructure support, business development expertise, office space and a place in the Bahrain Fintech Sand box. 

I have spoke before about how we anticipate growth in the Gulf region which is being supported by programs and regulatory changes. This kind of growth is what will create funding opportunities for BlockBank and its users. 

Tomorrow we are attending the second leg of the conference and in the evening have been invited to the fintech innovation launch event. We will also be speaking directly with the Governor of the Central Bank and the Finance Minister of Bahrain about how best to structure our third banking license application. 

I will provide another update tomorrow evening as to how we are progressing on this trip.

Thanks again for all your support and get in touch if you have any questions.

Kind regards.

Adam.