Nearly 97 per cent of the UAE business leaders are worried about the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on their organisation, but many are willing to turn to technology for help, according to a latest report by Oracle.
Respondents from the Emirates are concerned about a slow economic recovery (61 per cent), budget cuts (54 per cent) and potential bankruptcies (21 per cent), but most are willing to rely on technology for advice on overhauling their finances.
Seven in 10 business leaders said they would trust a robot more than a human to manage their finances, almost matching the global average. Eighty-one per cent said they would trust robots over their own finance teams and 64 per cent said they believed robots would replace corporate finance professionals within the next five years.
“Digital is the new normal and technologies such as artificial intelligence and chatbots play a vital role in managing finance,” Juergen Lindner, Oracle’s senior vice president for global marketing, said.
Almost 94 per cent of the UAE businesses believe that robots can improve their work by detecting fraud (41 per cent), creating invoices (33 per cent) and conducting analysis (20 per cent).
Oracle polled more than 9,000 responses from business leaders and consumers in 14 countries – including the US, the UK, Germany, Netherlands, France, China, India, Australia, Brazil, Japan, the UAE, Singapore, Mexico and Saudi Arabia – between November and December.
Some 60 per cent of consumers would trust a robot over themselves to manage their finances, and 65 per cent would trust technology over personal financial advisers.
To adapt to the growing influence and role of technology, corporate finance professionals and personal finance advisers must embrace change and develop new skills, Oracle said.
“Organisations that don’t embrace these changes risk falling behind their peers and competitors … hurting employee productivity, morale and well-being … struggling to attract the next generation of AI-empowered finance talent,” Mr Lindner said.
The UAE, a hub for start-ups and venture capital in the Arab world, is projected to benefit the most in the region from AI adoption. The technology is expected to contribute up to 14 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product – equivalent to Dh352.5 billion – by 2030, according to a report by consultancy PwC.
Some 92 per cent of UAE respondents to the Oracle survey want help from robots for finance tasks. This includes approvals (53 per cent), budgeting and forecasting (41 per cent) and risk management (34 per cent).
The Covid-19 pandemic has also propelled the rapid adoption of digital payments worldwide to meet increasing demand for contactless transactions, and the UAE is adapting to the shift faster than experts expected.
Technologies such as biometric identification and Quick Response (QR) codes are evolving as the next modes of payments.
The events of 2020 have changed the way consumers think about money and have increased the need for organisations to rethink how they use AI and other new technologies to manage financial processes, Oracle said in the report.
The majority of respondents expressed a preference to use technology to deal with cash, with 83 per cent of UAE businesses stating they have invested in digital payment capabilities, higher than the 69 per cent global average.
Ninety-six per cent of UAE business leaders, compared to 87 per cent globally, say organisations that don’t rethink financial processes face risks. These include falling behind competitors (55 per cent), stressed workers (47 per cent) and lower employee productivity (42 per cent).
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Trump v Khan
2016: Feud begins after Khan criticised Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban to US
2017: Trump criticises Khan’s ‘no reason to be alarmed’ response to London Bridge terror attacks
2019: Trump calls Khan a “stone cold loser” before first state visit
2019: Trump tweets about “Khan’s Londonistan”, calling him “a national disgrace”
2022: Khan’s office attributes rise in Islamophobic abuse against the major to hostility stoked during Trump’s presidency
July 2025 During a golfing trip to Scotland, Trump calls Khan “a nasty person”
Sept 2025 Trump blames Khan for London’s “stabbings and the dirt and the filth”.
Dec 2025 Trump suggests migrants got Khan elected, calls him a “horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor”
Retail gloom
Online grocer Ocado revealed retail sales fell 5.7 per cen in its first quarter as customers switched back to pre-pandemic shopping patterns.
It was a tough comparison from a year earlier, when the UK was in lockdown, but on a two-year basis its retail division, a joint venture with Marks&Spencer, rose 31.7 per cent over the quarter.
The group added that a 15 per cent drop in customer basket size offset an 11.6. per cent rise in the number of customer transactions.
