The Tech-onomic Forecast: Top Digital Shifts You Can’t Ignore

Stay ahead of the curve with a deep dive into the top digital transformation trends set to redefine the world of finance and banking. From AI-driven automation to the rise of decentralized finance, this session reveals the game-changing shifts every business leader needs to understand to thrive in tomorrow’s financial landscape.

Building the Future of Finance: The UAE’s Fintech Success

The UAE is building the future of finance through progressive regulation and future-proofing financial market infrastructure. Join this session to hear the concise view from the Central Bank on how the UAE is enabling innovation and positioning itself as a leading global hub for fintech.

Crypto’s Moment of Truth: Boom, Bridge or Build?

The wild ride of crypto has minted fortunes and shaken reputations but can it ever shake off the turbulence? This unfiltered fireside tackles the hard questions: is real utility finally emerging, or are we still chasing speculative ghosts? Who wins the battle for trust: exchanges, institutions or regulators? Expect sharp views, strong disagreements, and a clear-eyed look at whether crypto survives, or thrives, in its next chapter.

The Internet Financial System: A New Architecture for the Global Economy

The age of analog finance is over. Join Circle Cofounder, CEO, and Chairman Jeremy Allaire as he lays out a vision for the rapid rise of the Internet Financial System—a real-time, borderless, and programmable layer for economic value exchange.

Digital Credit: Harnessing Superior Yield through Bitcoin

As legacy financial systems face disruption, digital credit infrastructure is fast becoming the foundation for a new economic paradigm. In this keynote, Strategy’s Michael Saylor explores how decentralised technologies, institutional-grade assets and a shift in monetary thinking are transforming the future of credit, liquidity and long-term value.

The Great Convergence: The Infrastructure Race for Tomorrow’s Markets

As financial markets undergo radical transformation, the lines between traditional infrastructure and next-generation platforms are blurring. This conversation explores the convergence of old and new, from settlement rails to tokenization protocols and what it takes to build trust, scale and resilience into the financial architecture of tomorrow. With global capital, regulation, and innovation pulling in different directions, who will shape the foundations of the next era?

In Conversation in Solmate

Leading Through Disruption: In Conversation with Lord David Cameron

Unlocking the Next Chapter in Global Money Flow

As billions move across borders daily, the rails and rules underpinning those flows are evolving fast. In this session, leaders from institutional infrastructure, retail platforms and global remittance networks unpack how payments innovation is transforming access, efficiency and inclusion across both emerging and developed markets. From building trust across fragmented jurisdictions to scaling digital-first models at speed, this is a grounded, real-world look at the breakthroughs reshaping how money moves and where the next leap will come from.

Modernising the Machine: Inside the Transformation of Traditional Banking

What does transformation really look like inside a traditional financial institution? In this candid discussion, learn how banks are rewiring operations, digitising at scale and preparing for a future shaped by AI, tokenisation and rising client expectations. Beyond buzzwords, they’ll explore what’s working, what’s breaking and how institutions with legacy weight are turning it into competitive advantage in a market that demands constant reinvention.

Vision, Volatility, and Velocity: What Fintech CEOs Are Betting On Next

From reimagining credit to redefining digital banking, today’s fintech leaders are navigating a market that demands speed, trust and bold moves. In this high-level discussion, growth focused CEOs unpack what’s on their radar: regulation, profitability, AI, customer trust and what they’d do differently if starting again. Candid, future-focused and unapologetically ambitious, this is a conversation about what it really takes to lead in fintech’s next chapter.

Fintech in 2025: The Perspective of Hanwha

Champions of the Falcon Economy

This special segment will showcase the investment thesis and growth strategies of several listed industrial champions as they shape Abu Dhabi’s economic future.

Signals of Change: Where Innovation is Finding Momentum

A new layer of infrastructure is quietly reshaping how value, data and intelligence flow through the digital economy. This session brings together architects of tomorrow’s systems to explore what’s being rebuilt from the ground up, and why the region’s accelerated adoption is setting the tone for what comes next.

The Unicorn Formula: Funding Winners Before the World Notices

What does it really take to back a billion-dollar company before the crowd catches on? In this candid fireside, hear from several of the most active early-stage investors on the planet as they share the signals they trust, the bets that paid off and what’s changed in the hunt for outliers. From instinct to data, pricing to patience, this is the unfiltered playbook behind building a unicorn portfolio.

The Power of the Crowd: How AI and Social Are Reshaping Retail Investing

AI tools, open marketplaces and public API's are empowering a global community to build and share their own investing tools. By combining the collective intelligence of millions of users with cutting-edge AI, social investing can become a true engine for innovation in retail finance. Find out more in this keynote, featuring real-life use cases.

Beyond OTPs: Building Trust in a Device-First, Authentication Future

Financial institutions worldwide are moving away from SMS and email OTPs. Why? They are easily stolen through phishing, SIM swaps and malware, and they frustrate customers with friction and delays. To truly safeguard digital banking, institutions must embed device fingerprints, behavioral biometrics and advanced analytics. Whether mandated by regulation or adopted proactively, the case is the same: authentication must be device-bound, behaviour-aware and analytics-driven. This session explores how to prepare for what comes next.

Digital Desire: How Tokenizing Luxury Can Lead to New Ownership Models

Luxury is no longer limited to physical goods, instead it's algorithmic, tokenized and increasingly hyper-personalized. From fractional real estate to fashion NFTs and AI-curated brand experiences, this fireside explores how emerging tech is redefining exclusivity and ownership. With one foot in the tangible world and the other in digital ecosystems, today’s innovators are using AI and tokenization not just to sell, but to elevate status, shape identity and create scarcity in infinite digital spaces.

(Re)Insurance (Re)Imagined: Navigating Climate Risk, AI and Market Volatility

This high-level conversation explores how the reinsurance sector is evolving in response to mounting climate risks, AI-powered modeling innovations and fluctuating capital markets. Industry leaders discuss strategies for building resilience, leveraging technology to enhance risk assessment and adapting to a rapidly changing financial landscape to safeguard the future of global insurance.

Invisible Payments, Visible Growth: Under the Hood of Today's Power Plays

From challenger banks to cloud-native scaleups, the financial stack behind global innovation is undergoing a quiet revolution. This panel brings together four bold operators rewriting the rules, from startup banking built for tomorrow’s tech giants, to payments platforms going global from east to west and infrastructure players taking on the hyperscalers. Together, they’ll explore what it takes to fuel the next wave of growth, asking who’s really holding the keys to the future of fintech?

The Global CMO: Growth, Governance and Getting It Right in New Markets

For CMOs at global financial platforms, entering new markets isn’t just a launch plan, it’s a regulatory, cultural and reputational minefield. This conversation brings together marketing leaders to explore the tightrope between ambition and accountability. How do you localise without diluting? Where does marketing intersect with legal and compliance? And what does it take to earn trust in regions where your brand is unknown, or perhaps misunderstood?

From Islands to Infrastructure: Borderless Financial Services

Fragmented systems, national platforms and closed-loop architectures have long defined the financial world, but that’s changing fast. As regulators, fintechs and infrastructure builders converge, the push for interoperability, real-time access, and shared standards is reshaping how money moves. This session brings together leaders to explore what it takes to build a truly connected financial future and who sets the rules when money moves across systems, sectors and borders.

The MENA Fintech Awards

The MENA Fintech Awards celebrate the region’s most innovative and impactful fintech companies, entrepreneurs, and leaders. Recognizing excellence across categories like payments, digital banking and new technologies, the awards highlight the breakthroughs driving financial inclusion and technological transformation across the Middle East and North Africa.

Welcome to RESOLVE - Abu Dhabi International Dispute Resolution Forum

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Opening Remarks by ADGM Courts

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Justice with Courage: The UAE’s Path to Legal Leadership

In times of uncertainty, it takes courage to lead and set the standard. In this keynote, His Excellency will reflect on how the UAE’s judiciary is confronting the disputes of tomorrow, whether they arise from technology, commerce, or shifting global dynamics. By weaving innovation into the fabric of justice, the nation is building a system that commands confidence, protects fairness, and ensures the rule of law continues to guide society through uncharted territory.

That Will Never Work: In Conversation with Marc Randolph

This conversation traces the quiet persistence and bold choices behind building a global disruptor. Through moments of doubt, reinvention, and unlikely success, it offers a window into the mindset required to embrace uncertainty. For leaders in law and business, it’s a gentle reminder that the ideas most worth pursuing are often the ones others dismiss too quickly.

AI Reckonings: Risk, Rights & Resolution

As generative AI reshapes how business operates, it’s also accelerating threats. Cyberattacks have surged with phishing alone spiking over 1200% in one year. This panel will examine the mounting dispute resolution challenges triggered by AI, from liability in algorithmic decisions to accountability in AI-enabled breaches. With global regulators struggling to keep pace, what role must the legal community play in shaping safeguards, enforcement tools, and ethical frameworks before the next crisis strikes?

Coffee & Networking

Are You Ready for The Cyborgs?

Dr. Nancy W. Gleason will explore how individuals and institutions can remain future-ready in times of disruption. Drawing from her work on education, policy, workforce development and emerging neuroscience including brain-computer interfaces, she will examine how systems can foster critical thinking, adaptability and inclusion. This talk highlights the courage required to rethink legacy models in law, leadership and learning. It invites attendees to reflect on what true preparedness means for the unpredictable decades ahead.

Code, Currency, and Courts: Unravelling a Cross-Border Crypto Dispute

This session dissects a real-world cross-border crypto dispute, tracing a tokenised asset across jurisdictions and unpacking the legal fallout when the transaction unravels. As DeFi and digital assets transcend borders, courts face tough questions: Which law applies? Who has jurisdiction? Can crypto be frozen? Can judgments be enforced on-chain? Conflicting regulations further complicate enforcement. A dynamic panel of counsel, regulators, and industry insiders will walk through a multi-jurisdictional case, exposing procedural hurdles, clashing legal frameworks, and the urgent need for legal clarity in an unbounded digital economy.

Lunch & Networking

The Edge: Strategy, Pressure, Negotiation

In a world of relentless demands and razor-thin margins, how do top performers make decisions under pressure? This spotlight session explores the intersection of mental clarity, strategic negotiation, and sustained high performance. Blending behavioural science, leadership insight, and real-world tactics, our speaker reveals how to stay sharp when the stakes are highest, and how to turn negotiation into a performance edge, not a pressure point. For leaders, lawyers, and strategists - this is performance redefined.

Risk & Regulation: A CEO’s Playbook

What are the unresolved threats that top CEOs are quietly preparing for? This session brings together senior business minds to explore the high-consequence disputes facing today’s corporate leaders - from ESG litigation and shareholder activism to cyber breaches, geopolitical backlash, sudden enforcement sweeps and more. How are leadership teams aligning their legal strategy with boardroom priorities? What does effective pre-litigation risk management really look like when reputation and regulation collide?

Welcome to AI & Fintech Abu Dhabi

Kick off a dynamic programme exploring the technologies, trends and breakthroughs transforming finance and intelligence. This welcome sets the tone for a week where innovation meets impact, and where Abu Dhabi takes centre stage in shaping the future.

Innovating Beyond Boundaries: Lessons from Netflix’s Disruption

Marc Randolph, co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, draws on his experience with this megabrand. From transforming entertainment through a then revolutionary subscription payments model, to exploring how disruptive innovation can reshape financial markets. He shares insights on embracing change, scaling new business models and influencing customer behaviour in today's rapidly changing world.

Agentic AI: Powering Instant Intelligence

Now the driver powering instant intelligence, Agentic AI offers autonomous, real-time decision-making that revolutionises fraud detection, risk management and customer personalisation. In this panel discover how self-driven AI systems can accelerate financial processes, cut through complexity and deliver smarter, faster outcomes. Transforming the future of digital finance right before our eyes.

The Intelligence Economy: What Happens When AI Gets Real

In this session two of the sharpest minds at the frontier of machine intelligence explore what’s next. From building the infrastructure that powers foundation models, creating digital workers and applying scientific insight at scale, this fireside goes deep on how AI is remaking decision-making, risk and value creation across industries. What happens when AI stops being a tool and instead, starts becoming the environment?

Conviction & Code: Utilising Foundational Frameworks to Build New Economic Ecosystems

As artificial intelligence moves from experimental to essential, its impact on global economic systems is being shaped by more than just innovation, it’s being guided by conviction, control and long-term vision. In this session, investment leaders, AI pioneers and governance architects explore how trusted infrastructure, ethical frameworks, and strategic alignment are driving the next era of financial and technological growth. From national strategies to corporate execution, this is where foundational decisions are made.

Blockchain Abu Dhabi Opening Address

Please stay tuned for more details about this session soon.

Bullish for Builders: Is 2026 the Year the Foundations Hold?

This isn’t just another crypto panel. It’s a pulse check from insiders who have built empires, weathered cycles and called the market before it moved. With decades of combined foresight across blockchain, trading and innovation, this conversation brings together some of the most influential and at times controversial voices in digital assets. From market resilience to next-gen adoption, they will unpack what’s real, what’s noise and why the bets they are placing now could shape everything in 2026.

The Long Game: Rebuilding Trust in Global Finance with Decentralized Infrastructure

As volatility, fragmentation and regulatory overcorrection redefine the post-crisis landscape, this keynote unpacks how decentralized infrastructure is quietly becoming the backbone of tomorrow’s financial system. From settlement and custody to sovereign stablecoins and programmable assets, trust is no longer built by institution, but by design.

Public Chains, Public Gains: Blockchain for a Better Society

From protecting medical records to streamlining public finance, blockchain is gaining ground as a transformative tool for governments. In this session, we explore how decentralised infrastructure is being used to improve access, transparency, and trust across sectors, from healthcare to identity to social services. As civic applications move beyond theory into practice, we ask: can blockchain unlock more inclusive, citizen-centric systems? And what will it take for these innovations to scale safely, securely, and for public good?

Privacy at Scale: Evolving Digital Assets for the Future Economy

As regulation tightens and adoption widens from on-chains to stablecoins, it's important to build resilience across compliance, privacy and infrastructure. Join industry leaders to explore how to scale securely, serve millions and remain adaptable in a fast-moving market. Can privacy and compliance coexist? What does platform resilience really mean and which players are truly ready for what comes next?

Collateral Infrastructure: Building the Rails for Tokenized Leverage

From tokenized funds to next-gen lending protocols, unlocking crypto collateral is becoming a key frontier for institutional adoption. This panel brings together leaders to explore how tokenized assets, DeFi infrastructure, and regulated trading venues are reshaping capital efficiency. What guardrails are needed? What’s stopping institutions from tapping into this value? And how close are we to real interoperability between crypto-native and traditional collateral systems?

High Speed Horizons: Speed and Scalability Converge

The next evolution in global finance is Internet Capital Markets — a single global marketplace for every tradeable asset, operating at the same scale the internet does for information. Hear from one of the industries most prominent figures about the way blockchain technology is transforming the future of finance, the real-world use cases live today, the technical breakthroughs making them possible, and his vision for a future where markets are open, instant, and accessible to anyone, anywhere.

Solving Trust and Liquidity Challenges in Digital Asset Markets

With an increased digital assets market, liquidity and trust remain key drivers of institutional confidence and market scalability. This session explores how transparency, security measures and evolving infrastructure come together to create resilient, efficient markets. Experts will discuss how these foundations enable sustainable growth and foster wider adoption of digital finance.

From Access to Allocation: How Institutions Are Scaling Digital Asset Portfolios

As institutional exposure to digital assets deepens the challenge is no longer just access, it's allocation. This session brings together leaders from asset management, crypto-native funds and infrastructure to explore how multi-fund strategies are evolving to meet the needs of institutional investors. From managing volatility and regulatory complexity to scaling across fund structures and custody models, the conversation will unpack how institutions are building diversified, defensible crypto portfolios for the long term.

Keeping the FlyWheel Spinning: How Legacy Finance is Fuelling Next-Gen Products

Dive into how financial giants are taking the best of their legacy strength and blending it with cutting-edge DLT magic. We’ll explore how lessons from the blockchain gaming world are reshaping payment innovations, how ventures are backing the next wave of embedded finance, and how trends from East to West are shaping the future. See how established players are not just keeping pace but setting the tempo for the next generation of financial products.

Programmable Yield: Building the Next Market for Tokenised Debt

Debt markets are being reimagined on-chain. From tokenised treasuries to programmable fixed-income products, the infrastructure is emerging to create a new category of digital assets: scalable, transparent, and globally accessible debt instruments. As legacy systems converge with blockchain rails, the question is no longer when – but how fast institutions will adopt this new model.

Stablecoins in the Balance: Navigating Trust and Scale

Stablecoins are edging closer to the core of global finance but questions of trust and scale remain unresolved. This session brings together key players from both traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure to explore what it takes to operationalise stablecoins in a regulated environment. From settlement speed to regulatory clarity, the conversation focuses on the roadblocks that remain and the partnerships emerging to overcome them.

From Protocol to Platform: Reimagining Blockchains

Blockchain is no longer just about transfers, it’s about transformation. This keynote unpacks how today’s most advanced networks are moving beyond base-layer protocols to become platforms for real financial innovation. Think tokenized assets, faster rails, smarter contracts and the tools that turn infrastructure into impact.

Have We Finished Building the Bridge?

From disruption to deployment, blockchain has reshaped how finance thinks about value, trust and technology. Yet as regulation, infrastructure and liquidity mature, the question remains: have we truly connected decentralised innovation with the financial systems it set out to transform, or is the bridge still under construction? Voices from the foundation, framework and flow side of the ecosystem deliver their verdict and debate what it will take to finally complete the connection.

Risk4.0: A Welcome from ADGM

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Abu Dhabi in Action: Strengthening Market Integrity Across the Emirate

Market integrity is the foundation of innovation. In this conversation, regulators and industry leaders explore how Abu Dhabi is modernising its compliance frameworks, strengthening anti–money laundering and fraud-prevention measures, and leveraging technology to enhance oversight and accountability. Together, they examine how these efforts are reinforcing transparency, investor confidence, and sustainable growth across one of the world’s most forward-looking financial hubs.

Securing the Future: Building Cyber Resilience in Financial Hubs

Join the ADGM Academy to discuss the evolving cyber threat landscape facing global financial hubs. This fireside explores how collaboration between government bodies, regulatory academies, and industry leaders is shaping strategies to enhance cyber resilience, protect critical infrastructure and cultivate skilled talent ready to tackle tomorrow’s security challenges.

The Future of Stablecoins: From Safe Assets to Engines of Real-World Growth

Stablecoins have become one of the most important financial innovations of the last decade, but their next phase will be defined by utility, transparency, and real-world impact. This talk explores how stablecoins are evolving beyond passive reserves into instruments that can safely channel global capital toward productive activity—including the fast-growing private-credit markets of emerging economies. We'll explore what's driving this shift, and what it means for institutions seeking sustainable, risk-adjusted yield.

Criminal Code: Mapping the Cybercrime Economy

Cybercrime is now the backbone of a trillion-dollar illicit economy. From cyber-enabled money laundering to large-scale scams, criminals are exploiting digital tools to operate at industrial scale. Cyber-enabled money laundering now accounts for a significant portion of the staggering $2 trillion laundered globally and over $1 trillion is stolen by scammers each year. This session explores how cyber and financial crime are converging and what governments, industry, and international bodies must do to fight back.

Quantum Has Landed: What Would You Build First?

The age of quantum isn't coming, it's here. Encryption? Breakable. Simulations? Limitless. Infrastructure? Scrambling to catch up. In this future-facing panel, we ask a provocative question: if quantum capabilities were fully unlocked today, what would you build first? Join quantum pioneers as they explore what’s possible now, what financial systems must unlearn and what kind of world we're coding into existence, before someone else does it first.

Cross-Border Confidence: Payments, Permissions and Global Compliance

As financial institutions scale across borders, the ability to navigate fragmented regulatory environments, manage third-party data risks and embed trust into operational infrastructure is now mission-critical. This session brings together infrastructure providers, compliance specialists and digital payment pioneers to explore how financial ecosystems can remain agile and resilient, even as scrutiny intensifies. From API-led payments and secure data frameworks to regulatory readiness and governance innovation, discover the behind-the-scenes building blocks enabling global trust at scale.

The Human Element: Managing Risk Beyond Technology

Despite billions spent on cybersecurity, a record rise in fraud and cybercrime continues and the weakest link isn’t code, it’s people. From misdirected payments to manipulated employees, human error remains the top driver of breaches across finance. This session explores how firms are rethinking risk strategies to account for the human factor like training, culture, accountability, especially in sectors and organisations most vulnerable to attack. Because when every click counts, resilience starts with behaviour.

The Future of Trust: Identity Verification to Entity Centric Risk

Fraud prevention has outgrown transactional and based defenses. The next frontier is entity-centric risk, understanding the full digital footprint behind every user.In this session, we’ll explore how new detection and verification technologies connect device, behavioral, and cross-platform signals to define what truly constitutes an identity and their corresponding entity risk. This proactive approach not only stops fraud earlier but enables banks and fintechs to grow safely and confidently, because real growth begins with trust.

Insurance 4.0. What to Do and What to Stop

Insurance is going data first. The next win is one shared record of risk. This session sets out how Abu Dhabi, as it builds on its already growing market, can put in clean rails from day one. Capturing at source, keep a single record, connect the handoffs and avoid digitising legacy.

Five Real Risks We Face Tomorrow

Behind today’s headlines are systemic risks that most of the market continues to underestimate, or ignore entirely. In this sharp, forward-looking address, a leading mind on financial systems and regulatory design outlines five structural threats that demand urgent attention from both policymakers and private actors. With a track record of influencing global regulation, advising governments and drafting policy frameworks, he reveals the hidden vulnerabilities that could define tomorrow’s market landscape and what must be done now to mitigate them.

Digital Infrastructure 2030: Convergence of AI, Web3, and Real-World Systems

By 2030, the boundaries between artificial intelligence, decentralized networks, and real-world systems will blur. AI will not only act as a tool but as an active participant–trading, creating, and governing within digital infrastructures. Web3 promises trustless coordination, yet what happens when algorithms, not humans, are the primary agents on these networks? This session will will challenge leaders to imagine futures where identity, creativity, responsibility, and value are redefined by the convergence of AI and Web3. Together, we will explore what digital infrastructure humanity should build to safeguard dignity and resilience while embracing unprecedented opportunities.

Institutional Bridges: Institutional Adoption and the Evolution of Digital Asset Regulation

Institutional adoption of digital assets is no longer a question of if but how. Regulators, central banks, and financial institutions are under pressure to balance innovation with stability while new forms of money–stablecoins, CBDCs, tokenized deposits–are vying to become the backbone of the next global settlement layer. This session will explore the institutional bridges needed to move from experimentation to real-world scale: regulatory frameworks that encourage responsible growth, infrastructure that can integrate with legacy systems, and cultural shifts within finance that embrace decentralization without losing trust. Participants will discuss how regulatory innovation can unlock the next phase of adoption and what shape the future financial architecture will take.

The AI Evolution: From Potential to Practicality with Bloomberg

AI is changing the financial industry — and the world around us — at an accelerating pace. This roundtable will explore how AI is becoming a foundational technology in building more connected, efficient, and resilient financial systems, from capital flows and risk management to optimisation and market intelligence. Focusing on the challenges of enterprise AI adoption and insights on some of its most promising applications across finance.

Executive Dinner