UAE – Mubasher: The World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) has teamed up with SBI Ventures Singapore for an equity investment in Dubai-based Global Market Access Network (GMA).
This investment is expected to financially and strategically back the global expansion drive of GMA’s Global Trading Network (GTN), according to a press release.
GTN is working on its expansion plan to cover all electronically tradable markets and instruments worldwide by the end of 2022.
Chairman of GMA Group, Mohammed Rasheed Al Ballaa, said: “GMA is excited to have investors of the stature of IFC and SBI join its global expansion drive. Being part of the World Bank Group and an experienced FinTech investor in the emerging and frontier markets, IFC is uniquely positioned to provide strategic insight to GTN.”
Al Ballaa added: “SBI, one of the most innovative technology-driven financial services companies with extensive investment experience globally, brings substantial strategic value to GTN.”
The network is a fintech-powered global trading and investment ecosystem which provides financial institutions and corporate clients across the globe with access to global markets under a unified platform, which is a service on a business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model.
The platform aims to cater for democratising global trading and investment while focusing on emerging and frontier markets.
Group CEO of GMA, Manjula Jayasinghe, noted: “GTN platform empowers financial institutions and corporate clients with turn-key access to global markets for their customers. With complete market coverage across asset-classes by the end of 2022, GTN will be the most comprehensive electronic trading and investment platform globally.”
Jayasinghe added that GTN will be “ideally positioned to facilitate the increased trading and investment flows between countries and provide a much-needed boost to the capital markets, especially in the emerging and frontier world.”
Managing Director of IFC, Makhtar Diop, meanwhile said: “As IFC’s first fintech investment in the capital markets technology sector in the Middle East, our partnership with GMA and SBI sits at the nexus of many of our priorities – from developing and deepening capital markets, to fostering innovation and digital transformation, and promoting cross-border investment flows.”
Representative Director, President, and CEO of SBI Holdings, Yoshitaka Kitao, noted: “We are excited to partner with IFC and GMA for the global expansion of GTN. GTN is a FinTech driven platform business with substantial scalability. SBI Group is a strong advocate of using technology to disrupt traditional business models; GTN business model fits well with SBI Group strategy."
About GMA
GMA is headquartered at Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) with regulated operating subsidiaries in Dubai and Singapore that serve the Middle East and Asia and its dedicated technology development centre in Colombo, Sri Lanka. GMA Group currently has a team of 210 employees with a common purpose to create the most comprehensive trading ecosystem globally. https://www.theglobalmarketaccess.com/
About IFC
IFC—a member of the World Bank Group—is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in developing countries. In the fiscal year 2021, IFC committed a record $31.5 billion to private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity as economies grapple with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information, visit www.ifc.org.
About SBI Group
The SBI Group was established in 1999 as a pioneer of Internet-based financial services in Japan. Since then, the SBI Group has formed the world's first Internet-based financial conglomerate, providing financial services in a broad range of fields including securities, banking and insurance. In addition, the SBI Group provides Asset Management Business, with a prime focus on investment in venture companies - an activity undertaken since before the Group's founding. In this sphere, the SBI Group has made focused investments in the IT and biotechnology sectors, which are the 21st century growth industries. Currently, the development of new technologies is accelerating within the FinTech, IoT, AI, Big Data and related fields, thus attracting global attention. The SBI Group is proactively investing in venture companies within these fields. www.sbigroup.co.jp/english/
