Competition is heating up in the Gulf as financial jurisdictions battle over wealth management market share. A spate of recent moves suggest there is plenty of momentum. And the digital changes upending banks’ business models worldwide also affect those in the region. Several developments have been noticed in the banking space ,among them is Virtusa’s client Mashreq Bank which has become the first private bank in the UAE to harness artificial intelligence tech for its offerings. Vasudev Telikicherla, Senior Vice President, Head of Middle East Africa at Virtusa provides insight on the how private banks and wealth management firms in the Gulf region have given importance to technology and thus have proven to be faster in adopting technology as compared to their western counterparts.