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Fintech Forward 2026 returns for its 4th edition, bringing together leading voices from the global financial services and fintech ecosystem to explore the future of innovation, investment, and digital transformation. Hosted by the Bahrain Economic Development Board (Bahrain EDB) programmed by Forbes Middle East, and supported by the Central Bank of Bahrain and Bahrain Fintech Bay, Fintech Forward convenes industry leaders, policymakers, investors, and innovators from across the globe to discuss emerging trends, share insights, and foster collaboration that shapes the future of financial services. Through thought-provoking discussions, and networking opportunities, the event reinforces Bahrain’s position as a leading hub for fintech innovation in the region.
Why attend?
• Connect with industry experts, innovators, and thought leaders from around the world.
• Gain insights into the latest trends shaping financial services.
• Discover new investment, partnership, and business opportunities.
• Explore Bahrain’s thriving fintech ecosystem, supported by robust regulations and business-friendly environment.
• Be part of the conversation driving the future of finance.
Watch this page for the latest announcements, programme updates, and event highlights.
As the global financial system enters a period of rapid transformation, economies are navigating shifting capital flows, technology disruption, regulatory change, and new expectations around resilience. This opening fireside will examine the macro forces reshaping financial services globally, while bringing in Bahrain’s perspective on how trusted regulation, connectivity, and financial infrastructure can help economies remain competitive in the next era of finance.
Fintech is entering a more disciplined phase, where growth alone is no longer enough. This panel explores how profitability, regulation, customer trust, investor discipline, and consolidation are reshaping the next generation of fintech leaders. It will examine why stronger business models, bank partnerships, compliance maturity, and institutional confidence are becoming the new requirements for scale.
Stablecoins are moving from digital asset discussion to practical payment infrastructure. This panel explores how regulated stablecoins could support cross-border transfers, merchant settlement, remittances, treasury flows, digital commerce, and digital asset transactions. It will also examine what is required for stablecoin applications to connect safely with existing payment systems, banking rails, national payment infrastructure, compliance controls, and customer protection frameworks.
Explore the full lifecycle of mega projects, from planning and financing to execution, highlighting how large-scale development is being translated into tangible economic and infrastructure impact.
Tokenisation is no longer limited to asset issuance; it is beginning to affect the infrastructure banks use to process, settle, and support digital financial services. This panel explores what banks and market participants need to build across core banking systems, tokenised deposits, digital securities, tokenised funds, tokenised bonds, and smart contract-enabled settlement flows as financial institutions prepare for programmable finance.
Cross-border finance is being reshaped by real-time payment rails, digital assets, stablecoins, tokenised value, and more interoperable payment networks. This panel explores how banks, fintechs, payment providers, and infrastructure players are reducing friction across remittances, trade, treasury flows, merchant settlement, and investment corridors. The discussion will also examine how interoperability standards can either widen access for new entrants or become a barrier when systems are fragmented, expensive, or difficult to connect to.
Bahrain’s financial infrastructure is evolving across national payment rails, digital identity, cloud-enabled banking systems, regulated digital asset pathways, public-private fintech pilots, and sovereign digital systems. This spotlight looks at what is being built to support secure access, faster transactions, programmable settlement, fintech scaling, and regional interoperability, while reinforcing Bahrain’s role as a trusted financial infrastructure hub.
AI agents are beginning to move from recommendation engines into financial workflows where they may search, compare, initiate, or support transactions. This panel explores agentic payments, AI-assisted commerce, credit decisioning, compliance agents, and operational copilots, while asking who authorises the action, who explains the decision, and who is accountable when an AI agent acts inside a regulated financial system. It will also examine live and emerging case studies of agentic payments and AI-led transaction workflows, and address the practical liability question of whether responsibility sits with the financial institution, model provider, technology vendor, platform, or customer when an autonomous agent initiates a payment or trade. The session will also consider whether the market needs principles-based supervisory guidance or harder rules for AI-led financial activity.
As financial institutions automate more of their operating core, AI is being deployed across fraud detection, transaction monitoring, compliance checks, payment routing, authentication, and back-office workflows. This session focuses on real-world deployments across fraud, compliance, and payment performance, exploring how banks and fintechs can use AI to improve control functions, reduce false declines, detect threats earlier, and strengthen operational resilience without weakening regulatory oversight.
New financial infrastructure only scales when institutions and investors trust the rules around it. This fireside explores how regulation can help stablecoin settlement, tokenised assets, programmable finance, digital securities, and new market infrastructure move from early experimentation into credible, investable markets, with safeguards around custody, settlement, disclosure, investor protection, and market integrity. It will also address whether regulators should provide flexible principles-based guidance or harder rules for new infrastructure, AI agents, stablecoins, and tokenised markets.
Regulation will determine how confidently new financial technologies can scale. This opening session explores how regulators are responding to AI-led decision-making, digital assets, tokenisation, stablecoins, and new payment infrastructure while protecting trust, stability, and market confidence.
Open banking and permissioned data are becoming the intelligence layer behind better financial products. This panel explores how customer-consented data, transaction history, payment behaviour, invoice data, and stronger data quality can improve credit decisions, payment acceptance, fraud controls, pricing, and personalisation, while keeping users in control of how their data is shared and used. The discussion will also examine how open banking standards can either widen access or limit participation depending on how they are designed.
SME finance is moving from collateral-heavy lending toward data-led and platform-based credit infrastructure. This panel explores how open banking, payment history, invoices, cashflow data, digital identity, AI-led credit models, and micro-lending platforms can help lenders assess SMEs faster and expand working capital access, especially for SMEs and new entrants that lack traditional credit histories or collateral. It will also examine how smarter data rails can support small businesses that are often underserved by traditional lending models.
Bahrain’s fintech ecosystem is moving from early testing to practical deployment. This panel examines how fintech ideas and new entrants move from pilot to approval, licensing, integration, and commercial use, using current use-case areas such as programmable settlement, stablecoin applications, digital payments, AI-enabled banking systems, open finance, crypto-assets, and customer protection. The session will focus on how sandboxes, licensing pathways, regulatory on-ramps, and bank partnerships can help new players move from experimentation to regulated, scalable financial infrastructure.
Digital identity and eKYC are becoming the trust layer for digital finance. This panel explores how banks, fintechs, insurers, and wealth platforms can verify customers, businesses, and digital interactions more securely, while preparing for a future where AI agents may act on behalf of people and companies. The session will also examine how identity, consent, fraud controls, and compliance need to evolve as finance becomes more automated.
Digital finance cannot scale if users do not trust the channels they are using. This panel explores how scams, phishing, fake payment alerts, identity theft, social engineering, and AI-enabled fraud are affecting confidence in banking, wallets, payments, and fintech platforms. It will also examine how banks, regulators, payment companies, cybersecurity leaders, and digital platforms can work together to detect threats earlier and protect users.
Wealth management is expanding beyond traditional high-net-worth audiences. This panel explores how digital advisory, private market access, AI-powered insights, tokenised investment products, and hybrid wealth platforms are creating new opportunities for mass affluent, everyday, and next-generation investors.
As payments, lending, digital assets, and platform finance scale, insurance is becoming a protection layer inside financial infrastructure. This panel explores how embedded insurance, cyber cover, SME protection, AI-led underwriting, real-time claims, and digital asset risk products can help fintechs, banks, and platforms scale more safely across the region. The discussion will examine how insurance moves from a standalone product to an embedded layer within payments, lending, wallets, digital assets, and platform ecosystems.
Tokenisation could give sustainable finance a faster and more transparent market structure. This panel explores concrete capital markets use cases, including tokenised sukuk, green bonds, digital securities, infrastructure-linked securities, and real-time investor reporting. It will look at how these tools could improve issuance, settlement, ownership tracking, and investor transparency while supporting climate, infrastructure, and development funding across the region.
This fireside moves from market conditions to operator choices. It explores what banks, fintechs, and platforms need to build now to remain relevant by 2027, from AI-enabled operations and embedded finance to digital asset readiness, stronger unit economics, and commercially sustainable platform models.
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Inaugurated in November 2022 and owned by the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA), Exhibition World Bahrain (EWB) is the World’s Leading New Exhibition and Convention for 2023, the Middle East’s Leading largest MICE venue.
The venue offers a wide range and variety of leasable spaces for all types of events of all sizes, from large conventions and exhibitions to conferences and meetings, live entertainment performances, galas, celebrations, corporate functions and more.
Forbes Middle East is a licensee of Forbes Media and extends the Forbes brand of journalism across the Arab world. Forbes Middle East’s distinctive editorial style attracts a readership of Arab leaders, entrepreneurs, C-level executives, government officials and investors united by a belief in the spirit of free enterprise and entrepreneurial values.Across the region, Forbes Middle East sets the pace for preemptive business journalism. By uncovering trends and anticipating opportunities in the regional marketplace, each monthly issue brings top executives the information critical to their success – in both Arabic and English language editions. The magazine researches and publishes original rankings, based on methodologies set by Forbes Media.
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Forbes Middle East is a licensee of Forbes Media and extends the Forbes brand of journalism across the Arab world. Forbes Middle East’s distinctive editorial style attracts a readership of Arab leaders, entrepreneurs, C-level executives, government officials and investors united by a belief in the spirit of free enterprise and entrepreneurial values.Across the region, Forbes Middle East sets the pace for preemptive business journalism. By uncovering trends and anticipating opportunities in the regional marketplace, each monthly issue brings top executives the information critical to their success – in both Arabic and English language editions. The magazine researches and publishes original rankings, based on methodologies set by Forbes Media.
