Dubai: The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), the independent regulator of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), today hosted its 2025 Annual Outreach session to discuss shifting supervisory priorities and regulatory expectations. More than 500 senior executives, compliance and legal specialists, and anti-money-laundering reporting officers from across the banking, capital markets, wealth and asset management, and fintech sectors in the Centre took part in the session.
According to Emirates News Agency, the session aims to enhance transparency, increase understanding of regulatory requirements, and support financial services firms in meeting evolving compliance standards, underscoring the shared commitment to protecting investors and safeguarding the integrity of the financial system. The session is being held as the DIFC continues its growth as the leading financial hub in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, with more than 1,000 regulated entities and total banking-sector assets of approximately US$240 billion.
In this context, Justin Baldacchino, Managing Director of Supervision, said that this year's Outreach Session is a fundamental step in efforts to reinforce resilience and trust in the DIFC financial system. By engaging directly with DFSA-regulated entities and the wider regional and global financial community, the DFSA ensures that its supervisory policies effectively contribute to strong and sustainable growth. This year's session highlights the challenges facing the DIFC community, foremost among them ensuring that systems, controls, and governance standards evolve in line with the Centre's unprecedented business growth.
The session included updates on the DFSA's five supervisory focus areas: prudential supervision, conduct of business, financial crime, innovation and technology risk, and audit and infrastructure, in addition to major updates on enforcement, policy, authorisation, and markets. The session also addressed various topics, including auditor appointment protocols, financial crime controls, cyber risk mitigation, innovation within the fintech ecosystem, and the DFSA's risk-based supervisory methodology, which supports disciplined and sustainable growth in line with Dubai's economic agenda.
The DFSA unveiled the key findings of its thematic reviews published this year, which examined high-growth firms, fund-management self-custody, and several other supervisory elements. The findings revealed a central issue: while the DIFC continues to attract more business, compliance frameworks and oversight mechanisms must be strengthened to keep pace with this growth.
Among the key findings shared with DFSA-regulated firms were the need for proactive hiring of compliance specialists, enhanced board oversight, strengthened self-custody controls for fund managers relying on self-custody arrangements, comprehensive written policies, effective conflict-of-interest management, robust compliance-monitoring mechanisms, and strong artificial intelligence governance. The DFSA's Annual Outreach Session forms a central part of its ongoing efforts to support sustainable growth in line with Dubai's economic agenda and to reinforce the emirate's position as a global financial hub.
Dubai has consolidated its position as the region's most credible and trusted financial centre, ranking 11th globally on the Global Financial Centres Index and standing among the world's top four fintech hubs.