It’s been more than a week since I returned from a two-day Fintech Summit in Dubai hosted by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. By the very look and feel of it, the world comes to know that these leaders do envision a prosperous financial future for the country. It was evident for the world to see.
The stalls I visited, the plans we made as a team, the potential partners we met, the lively discussions that sometimes turned into brainstorming sessions, and the friendly smiles along with the cute takeaway gifts now sitting in my study remind me of the business interactions that, with a few detours along the way, blossomed into lifelong friendships.
They still make my mind fly across the seas to that land of opportunities. Some takeaway gifts came with hugs and big smiles too. The cafeteria, right opposite our booth numbered J-9, overflowed with baked goodies that made mouths water in addition to spreading a Christmas aura. Even though I decided in my mind that J-9 meant nothing but ‘JUST 9 steps ahead of everybody there’, the smell of coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger that wafted from the cafeteria relaxed me and seemed to ease all others into a pleasant non-competitive mood.
Until I joined a Fintech company, numbers never bothered me. Somewhere in between trying to understand the fee charged, received and processed in the context of banking, I took to understanding the Swift MT 0-9 series. And for each number I had an interpretation. So, the single digit number assigned to our booth was more than satisfying. Given Jacob Aruldhas’ persona and leadership of our team, the number 9 came to represent visionary ideas and the drive to lead meaningful change. With a career that spanned some of the most respected names in global finance, he brought both depth and dimension to the world of financial technology. Starting as a middleware consultant at HSBC, he evolved into an IT architect at Chase, honed his engineering skills at Deutsche Bank, took on architecture and analyst roles at Franklin Templeton and Vanguard, and later brought his expertise to academia as a visiting faculty member at Columbia University and Kerala University.
What tied all these roles together was not just technical expertise, but a relentless fire in his belly to optimise processes, to reimagine complex systems in ways that would not only enhance efficiency but ultimately ease human existence and business operations. Indeed, it takes a humane mind to architect change at this scale. One that envisions technology not just as a tool, but as a bridge to better living. Thus, he knew what he must build, how it should work and what measurable impact it must deliver to banks, corporates and investment managers who relied on department-centric applications that never prioritised transparency, compliance and secure infrastructure.
The products, services and solutions were all about user value, scalability, modernising and digitising pro-stable institutions, beyond the ledger, deeper connectivity across the financial ecosystem, better cyber security, real-time visibility and settlements and speed. If not for the adoption of the integrated platform built by his team, many well-established institutions would likely still be relying on outdated transaction processing systems. As I munched over these thoughts, I promised myself I’d talk about ECS Fin at every stall I stopped by and just as importantly, take time to hear their experiences too since every person carries something worth sharing. When that story is one of triumph, it becomes a beacon of hope for others. Meanwhile, my heart hummed with gratitude for Shreya and Reena, my steadfast colleagues holding the fort at J-9.
Two days of intellectual extravaganza of Fintech minds from all over the world were a sight to behold and an experience to remember for a lifetime. Dubai Fintech 2025 was an attempt to energise the people-to-people relationship by focusing on exchange of ideas in addition to creating a resource pool of the world’s most influential fintech leaders, top-tier investors, policy architects, innovators, and startups. For two full days, nothing lacked a buzz with 8,000 attendees, around 300 speakers and hundreds of exhibitors. The sea of possibilities and opportunities was too deep and promising to explore. This was yet another transformative summit to strengthen business-to-business linkages and people-to-people contacts, which also provided a broader underpinning to the overall global relationship and economy. It seemed to include collaborative services, joint product development, market expansion and distribution partnerships, strategic investments and Mergers & Acquisitions and many more. Right from the red-carpet welcome and grand buffet to the plenary sessions and the closing ceremony, this two-day event set a global benchmark for financial technology gatherings, as it always does.
The booth to our right, Walnut Technologies, was hosted by Siddharth and Anjie, both so adorably in sync that even gravity seemed to ship them as a couple. After a few smiles, some classic pleasantries, and a socially acceptable amount of eye contact, I smoothly transitioned into chat mode, which, I believe, came pre-installed at my birth itself. Even though I know that the wrinkled appearance of a walnut to the cerebral cortex has got nothing to do with the formation of the folds and ridges, I knew my neighbours had an interesting story behind their company. Bingo! This three-year-old fintech arm branched from Walnut Medical that manufactures therapeutic and robotic neurorehabilitation devices to treat brain and spine injuries. To know that Paytm was their first customer wasn’t surprising enough because seconds earlier I discovered the hosts were a real couple. Wishful thinking turned serendipitously perfect.
Inside the booth, to our immediate left, sat a demure woman, who sported a closed-lip smile. Her eyes shone with intelligence and determination. I requested her to click some photos of us and she gracefully obliged. In my mind I read AML watcher as ‘A Magical Land Watcher’ yet I chose to have a light conversation with her to thank her for her kindness. When I grasped that AML Watcher is a banking-grade Anti-Money Laundering screening and transaction monitoring solution backed by 100,000+ data sources all updated and maintained in-house, I renamed it as All Monsters’ Lurking Watchdog. Me being me, the small talk lasted for more than an hour during which I browsed the entire brochure, received an invite to stay with her during my next visit, we exchanged numbers hoping for a future collaboration, she regaled me with some mummy anecdotes and shared photos and tiny tales of her two-year-old son Mustafa.
As I walked from one booth to another, I remembered my short trips to banks holding a cheque or DD or a passbook, long queues, some friendly faces from the neighbourhood who let me jump the queue, some man or woman who would lift me up so that I could pass whatever I had with me to the teller at the counter; the sound of typewriter keys and ticking clocks, piled up dusty files and classic bank faces worn by endless routines. Some casual banter resulted in giving and receiving goodie bags, keepsakes and souvenirs. While weaving through the aisles I ran into Robin Panicker, the brain behind SEQATO and literally our neighbour at Technopark, Trivandrum. It instantly felt like a ‘homecoming’. The Disney nerd and bacronym junkie in me totally read SEQATO as Simba’s Elite Quest to Automate Tech Operations until I found out it stands for Software Engineering, Quality Assurance, and Tech Operations. Still pretty dope, just less Hakuna Matata. In the circle of tech life, even kings need smooth ops, don’t they! Application development being their forte, their booth buzzed with an energy that made it feel less like a career fair and more like a launchpad for the next big thing in technology.
Every booth was a small world, a proof of a financial landscape undergoing a remarkable renaissance, a tribute to what humans can build when they refuse to settle for ‘the utterly dull way it’s always been’. Along my way, a rotary phone caught my attention and so did six faces that put me at ease. I hopped in. They called themselves the Pays Solutions team. One of them, Carlos Rosada, shared how $950 he sent from Europe to India was blocked by a bank, an experience that pushed him to seek a modern alternative to the outdated and burdensome 50-year-old cross-border payment system. The idea was born in his village Radojewo Ulica Piolunowa, that was his grandfather’s home and business hub, where people from the city came for fresh vegetables, fruits, and meat. Surrounded by this legacy of local trade and connection, the vision for a new financial solution took root in this magical place with three musketeers at the helm namely Carlos, Filip Bloch and Adam Larsson.
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🚀 Reflecting on @DubaiFinTechSum 2025—8,000+ attendees, 300+ speakers & endless opportunities.💡 Met visionary leaders like Jacob Aruldhas (@ecsfin) & innovative startups like Walnut Tech & AML Watcher. A global hub for fintech collab. #TheIndianSun
🔗 https://t.co/Fdj1Din4v9 pic.twitter.com/OUqdE8V9mZ
— The Indian Sun (@The_Indian_Sun) June 8, 2025
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