Under the auspices of the Palestine Capital Market Authority, The National Bank and Flow Accelerator announced the launch of the Pal Blue Book platform, a fintech solution developed as part of the cooperation between the two parties on a digital technology solutions incubation program launched in 2021. The launching took place in the presence of the Director General of the PCMA Buraq Al-Nabulsi, the Executive Director of the Financial Stability Group at the Palestine Monetary Authority Iyad Zitawi, the CEO of Flow Accelerator Majd Khalifa, the CEO of The National Bank Salameh Khalil, and a group of insurance and financial leasing companies, and journalists.
In his opening speech, Al-Nabulsi said that this achievement reflected the Authority’s 2021-2023 strategy, which aims to promote financial technology in the non-banking financial sectors under its supervision. Al-Nabulsi pointed out that the no-objection letter granted to Mr. Kanaan provided a regulatory framework to offer a vehicle pricing service using artificial intelligence in a live environment in concessional conditions and specific controls, in order to provide an innovative service for both the insurance and the financial leasing sectors in Palestine. He added: “The Authority provided the necessary regulatory guidance, and the innovative solution presented by Mr. Kanaan to the Authority was developed step by step, starting with the “Innovate” platform. We wish him all the success in his project.”
For his part, Zitawi congratulated The National Bank, Flow Accelerator, and the Capital Market Authority on this achievement, wishing success to the entrepreneur Ahmed Kanaan. He also stressed the importance of the partnership between TNB and Flow in supporting and encouraging entrepreneurial ideas and solutions in the financial sector, to change the consumer pattern, reduce the cost and improve the quality of financial services. He also called on banks and other business accelerators to establish such partnerships, stressing PMA’s readiness to receive any fin-tech requests in its regulatory laboratory.
For his part, Khalil expressed his happiness that the incubation program has begun to reap its fruits with the success of the first incubated solution, Pal Blue Book. A letter of no objection was obtained from the Palestine Capital Market Authority to start the operations. He indicated that The National Bank believes in the importance of investing in digital solutions and giving the opportunity to Palestinian youth to access the market by investing in their technological pioneering ideas, to facilitate the work of companies and the daily transactions of citizens. This was the main goal of launching the program. Khalil thanked all parties for their role in developing this platform from a mere idea to a technological solution capable of serving the insurance sector and its clients.
In turn, Khalifa said, “We are very proud at Flow of the tangible results achieved with the private sector, represented by the financial sector and The National Bank. Through this partnership, we were able to provide the technical and financial support necessary to develop an innovative solution such as Pal Blue Book. It provides the legal, legislative and technical requirements necessary to obtain a letter of no objection from the legislator, the Palestinian Capital Market Authority. We encourage all target groups of this technological solution to use and experiment with it and give feedback to develop it into its best version yet.”
Entrepreneur Ahmed Kanaan, owner of the Pal Blue Book platform, gave a presentation about the platform and how it works. It relies on data science and artificial intelligence to improve vehicle pricing and assessment. The platform automatically creates optimal pricing strategies based on data science.
Kanaan thanked TNB for the effective launching of Pal Blue Book and noted that it was the first Palestinian platform for pricing vehicles through artificial intelligence, while taking into account the Palestinian market price. It represents a reference, ensures transparency for users, and provides a guide for everyone in the market.
