Artificial intelligence, digital payments, and stablecoins are converging to define the future of global finance, Finance and National Economy Minister Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa declared at the opening of Fintech Forward 2026 at Exhibition World Bahrain this morning.
Addressing global banking leaders, regulators, and tech innovators, Shaikh Salman emphasised that finance has entered an era driven by intelligence rather than paper or data networks - requiring safe AI deployment, balanced regulation, and proactive system resilience.
With global unbanked figures still standing at 1.3 billion despite high mobile penetration, Shaikh Salman called for international collaboration to bridge the digital financial divide while announcing that more than 60 new strategic partnerships will be signed during the forum.
More details in tomorrow's GDN
&uuid=(email))