Who really controls money today, banks, big tech, or AI itself? In this episode of Wall Street to MENA, Raghda Ibraheem sits down with Ronit Ghose, Industry Chair of the Future of Finance and AI Group at MENA Fintech Association, to unpack how AI agents are reshaping the relationship between consumers, banks, and technology platforms.
Ronit breaks down:
- Why money splits into savings, payments, and speculative capital, and who controls each layer today
- How AI agents could become a “mini private bank” for the 99% who have never had a family office
- Why the UAE’s smaller, more agile regulatory environment lets it move faster than the US or UK
- The concentration risk created when a handful of AI labs and cloud providers underpin the global banking system
- Why every successful fintech eventually becomes a regulated bank, and what history’s biggest banks looked like as startups
- His prediction for where power over money sits 10 years from now
MFTA connects regulators and financial industry leaders across the MENA region to build a more advanced, inclusive financial ecosystem.
