MEBIS 2026, the Middle East Banking Innovation Summit, takes place at Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai on 16 and 17 September 2026. Organised by Expotrade, the summit gathers senior bankers, fintech founders and technology vendors for two days of sessions on how banks in the Gulf and wider Middle East are modernising their products, channels and operations.
The agenda concentrates on the practical questions facing retail and corporate banking leaders: digital onboarding and identity, payments and open banking, artificial intelligence in risk and customer service, core banking modernisation and the regulatory expectations attached to each. Speakers are typically drawn from chief digital officers, chief information officers and heads of innovation at regional banks, alongside central bank and regulator representatives.
The summit is a long running fixture that sits in a crowded Dubai calendar of financial technology events. Its distinguishing feature is its focus on incumbent banks rather than on start ups, which makes it a useful venue for vendors targeting bank transformation budgets and for bankers comparing notes with peers.
For boards and executive committees at Gulf banks, MEBIS is a reading of where competitors are investing and which technology partners are gaining traction. For technology and consulting leaders, it is a concentrated audience of bank decision makers a few weeks before the year end budgeting cycle. The event opens two days after publication, so it is relevant chiefly to those already planning to attend or to follow the announcements that come out of it.
