In early September, international financial centre Abu Dhabi Global Market began a second consultation on plans for the sandbox, the FinTech Regulatory Laboratory, which it intends to launch by the end of the year. Start-ups wishing to benefit from Abu Dhabi’s new fintech regulatory framework will need to establish a presence in the emirate, though Wai Lum Kwok, executive director of capital markets at ADGM, is keen to play down the competitive implication of the initiative. “Whatever we cultivate here, the rest of the region will benefit and vice versa,” he says. “There is a lot of activity on the ground, but there is no one to bring everyone together so we hope to have a first-mover advantage.”

https://www.ft.com/content/87d48142-53e5-11e6-9664-e0bdc13c3bef