(MENAFN- Mid-East Info) Dubai, United Arab Emirates,November 2025: The DFSA Annual Outreach aims to enhance transparency, improve understanding of regulatory requirements, and support financial services organisations in meeting evolving compliance standards; underscoring a shared commitment to protecting investors and maintaining the integrity of the financial system. The event is being held as the DIFC continues its momentum as the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia's leading financial centre, now regulating more than 1,000 entities, and with assets of approximately USD 240 billion – in the Banking sector alone.

Justin Baldacchino, Managing Director, Supervision, at the DFSA, said:“The DFSA Annual Outreach is central to our mission to build trust and resilience in the DIFC financial system. By engaging directly with our regulated entities and the wider regional and global community, we ensure that our supervision policies have meaningful impact in achieving strong and sustainable growth. This year's session addresses the critical challenges facing our regulated community: ensuring that systems, controls, and governance evolve in step with unprecedented growth across the Centre.”

The session provided comprehensive updates on the DFSA's five supervision focus areas – Prudential, Conduct of Business, Financial Crime Conduct, Innovation & Technology Risk, and Audit & Infrastructure, – alongside key updates on Enforcement, Policy, Authorisation, and Markets. Topics ranged from auditor appointment protocols to financial crime controls, cyber risk security measures, and innovation in the fintech ecosystem, emphasising the DFSA's risk-based, proportionate supervisory approach that supports controlled and sustainable growth aligned with the Dubai Economic Agenda D33.

Findings from the DFSA's thematic reviews published this year were notably covered at the outreach, examining high-growth firms, fund management self-custody, and other critical areas. A central theme emerged: while the DIFC continues to attract significant business expansion, compliance frameworks and oversight mechanisms must be strengthened to match this growth.

Key findings shared with regulated entities included:

• Proactive compliance resourcing: Firms should integrate compliance hiring into growth planning rather than taking reactive approaches, ensuring adequate resources for the scale and complexity of operations.
• Enhanced Board oversight: Growth strategies require robust Board-level discussion, challenge, and documentation of associated risks and mitigation plans.
• Self-custody controls: Fund managers using self-custody arrangements should implement comprehensive written policies, conflicts of interest management, and compliance monitoring.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) governance: With AI adoption accelerating rapidly across firms – including a near-tripling of Generative AI use in the past year – some firms still lack oversight mechanisms are calling for more clarity and guidance on AI governance, ethical use cases, and supervisory expectations.

The DFSA Annual Outreach is part of the regulator's broader efforts to promote sustainable growth that aligns with the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 and to further strengthen the emirate's position as a global financial centre. Dubai has steadily cemented its ranking as the region's most credible financial centre, ranking 11th on the Global Financial Centre Index and among the top four global fintech hubs.

The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) is the independent regulator of financial services conducted in and from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), a purpose-built financial free zone in Dubai, UAE. The DFSA regulates and supervises financial services firms and markets in the DIFC. These include asset managers, banks, custody and trust services, commodities futures traders, fund managers, insurers and reinsurers, traders of securities and fintech firms. We supervise exchanges and trading platforms for both conduct and prudential purposes, overseeing an international securities exchange (Nasdaq Dubai) and an international commodities derivatives exchange (Gulf Mercantile Exchange). The DFSA is also responsible for supervising and enforcing anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism requirements applicable in the DIFC.

Justin Baldacchino is the Managing Director of Supervision at the DFSA, bringing 25 years of international finance experience. He possesses deep expertise in regulatory interpretation, liaison, implementation, risk, regulatory affairs, compliance, anti-money laundering (AML), capital, liquidity, innovation, and technology. Joining the DFSA in 2020, Mr Baldacchino previously served as the Group Head of Regulatory Compliance for ANZ Bank in Australia and held various senior roles at JP Morgan in Hong Kong, including Head of Regulatory Compliance, Asia-Pacific, and Head of International Operational Risk, Asia-Pacific. He also served as Head of Compliance and Risk Governance, Asia for National Australia Bank in Hong Kong. Mr Baldacchino is an alumnus of Melbourne Business School with an MBA and a Post Graduate Diploma, and he holds a Bachelor of Economics from La Trobe University. He completed the Harvard Executive Programme in Regulatory Strategic Management and is a certified AML Specialist. He has served as an Executive Board Member for the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists and is currently a member of The Basel Consultative Group.

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