Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem, announced the launch of Hub71+ Digital Assets, a dedicated Web3 specialist ecosystem, with more than $2 billion of capital committed to fund Web3 startups and blockchain technologies from the UAE’s capital. Hub71+ is a specialist ecosystem dedicated to advancing specific technology sectors. The first Hub71+ to launch is ‘Hub71+ Digital Assets’ – focused on unleashing the disruptive potential of Web3 and the growth of digital assets. Web3 describes the evolution of the internet into a decentralized online space increasingly built on innovations such as blockchain technology and metaverse applications. Web3 startups, from seed to…

Emirates Islamic has launched a global Fintech accelerator campaign in collaboration with Plug and Play Abu Dhabi. The campaign is a call to action for leading Islamic Fintechs and financial startups with propositions that can enhance customer journeys across SME financing, trade finance and financial well-being. This builds on Plug and Play Abu Dhabi’s partnership with the banking Group. Earlier last year, Emirates NBD had partnered with the platform to boost its open innovation ecosystem globally. In recent years, Islamic finance has grown rapidly in both its role in ethical financial empowerment and in terms of global financial market share,…

Savii, a financial platform designed for teens and young adults, today announced their official product launch in the UAE. The Savii banking app and Visa prepaid card allow teenagers and young adults to make payments independently and relieve parents of the anxiety of giving them premature access to their own credit card. Jane Harvey, Co-founder and CEO of Savii commented “If you are a parent, giving your teens some financial responsibility early on is a smart move. They’ll get to flex their money management skills, like budgeting and saving, learn the value of a dirham and begin to appreciate the…

The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) launched yesterday it’s Financial Infrastructure Transformation Programme to accelerate the digital transformation in the financial services sector as part of a wider strategy aimed at enabling the CBUAE to be among the top central banks globally. The FIT Programme aims to support financial services sector, promote digital transactions, and enable the UAE’s competitiveness to become the financial and digital payment hub and a centre of excellence for innovation and digital transformation through encouraging innovation and collaboration as well as competition in the financial sector. The programme comprises implementation of nine key initiatives. The…

Nigerian payments company Flutterwave announced that it has received its Payment Services Provider and Payments Facilitator licenses in Egypt. This will enable Flutterwave to collect payments on behalf of its customers and settle payments locally and globally. The company will now be able to deploy Flutterwave for Business suite of products including store, payment links, invoices, checkout in Egypt. Flutterwave facilitates cross-border transactions in multiple currencies for global companies, including Uber, and the new licenses will help the company support international businesses entering the Egyptian market or growing their operations in the country. Aalaa Gamal, Regional Manager, North Africa in…

The UAE has over the last five years or so become home to a growing range of innovative tech companies in a wide variety of sectors, including fintech. This has been the result of a very deliberate policy of the UAE government to turn the country into a global tech hub, creating an advantageous environment for entrepreneurs while also capitalizing on the country’s strategic location as an access point to the Middle East. A further key to the country’s development as a leading global tech development center has been the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020. The unprecedented…

Egyptian fintech MNT-Halan announced that it has raised up to US$400 million in equity and debt financing, pushing its valuation to over US$1 billion. The funds came from Chimera Abu Dhabi which has invested more than US$200 million in equity in exchange for over 20% of the company. Additionally, MNT-Halan said that it is in advanced stages with other unnamed international investors to raise US$60 million of primary capital. This follows a US$120 million investment in Q3 2021 by other major global and regional growth investors, including Development Partners International (DPI), Apis Growth Fund II, and Lorax Capital Partners. The…

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is booming – some experts predict it could grow by up to 400% in the next few years. BNPL products have gone from interesting new option to a household staple in recent years. And, like any emerging market, the products and the regulations that govern providers are evolving quickly. As BNPL providers take bigger and bigger bites out of the US$8 trillion credit card industry, both credit card providers and innovative startups are taking notice. To compete and thrive, BNPL providers need technology that doesn’t just get them to market quickly, but that also prepares…

Open Ecosystem RegTech provider, Konsentus, establishes its MENA regional base in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to provide open data infrastructure and technology services to regulators and financial services providers in the Kingdom and surrounding territories. The team is led by Managing Director MENA, Konsentus, Saleh Alhammad, who has been collaborating closely with key stakeholders across the region over the last few years in order to support the evaluation and introduction of protected open ecosystems. Central to the successful roll-out of open data exchange in any MENA country is a safe and secure platform incorporating the control and governance of…

Mastercard has partnered with Bahrain’s fintech and payment service provider Eazy Financial Services (EazyPay) that will now be powered by Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MPGS). MPGS is a trusted platform that provides financial institutions with a white-label technology for payment processing and fraud prevention. As one of the largest gateways in the region that is utilized by many players in the financial ecosystem, it enables its partners to accept a wide range of digital transactions easily and securely, including all leading card brands and other non-card payment methods. “Mastercard works to co-create a new reality for the digital payments ecosystem,”…

Wafeq, a modern and easy-to-use accounting platform, has announced the completion of its $3 million seed round. The Dubai headquartered company’s seed round was led by Raed Ventures and saw participation from Wamda Capital, both of which are two of the most prominent names in the region’s early-stage funding ecosystem. Built for the unmet finance and accounting needs of small and medium businesses in the Middle East, this fundraise will fuel Wafeq’s entry into Egypt, while doubling down on its presence in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Businesses using Wafeq create over 630,000 invoices every month, with total monthly invoiced…

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has unveiled the granting of no objection certificates (NOCs) to five applicants of its digital banking license, moving these entities closer to securing the regulatory greenlight they need to eventually launch their digital banking outfits. Consortia Easy Paisa DB, Hugo Bank and KT Bank, as well as Mashreq Bank and Raqami are the five entities that received a NOC. A NOC is a type of legal certificate delivered by an agency, organization, institute or, in certain cases, an individual, which says that the issuer has no objection to the details mentioned in the document.…

The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) announced the licensing of two finance companies specialized in debt-based crowdfunding, namely: Forus and Tameed. The licenses were granted to the companies after successful testing of their solutions in SAMA’s Regulatory Sandbox; an experimental environment dedicated to innovative financial products and services in Saudi Arabia. This initiative comes as part of the vital role SAMA plays in strengthening the finance sector, encouraging and enticing innovators and investors who can bring added value to the sector while maintaining full adherence to the supervisory guidelines defined by SAMA. The licensing of these two FinTech companies is a…

The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) continues to experiment on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) as it is currently working on a phase of a project that focuses on domestic wholesale CBDC use cases in collaboration with local banks and fintechs. This project comes in line with several central banks CBDC initiatives across the globe and as part of SAMA’s ongoing research and experimentation on CBDC. During this phase of the project, SAMA seeks to explore CBDC economic impact, market readiness, and potential robust and fast applications of a CBDC-based payment solution. In addition, SAMA seeks to review policy, legal and…

2022 was a record-breaking year for venture capital (VC) investment in Saudi Arabia. Startups in the country secured a total of US$987 million across 144 deals, representing a staggering 72% increase in funding volume compared with 2021, according to a new report by Magnitt, a startup and venture investment data platform focused on the Middle East, and Saudi Venture Capital, a government VC fund. Fintech led the charts for funding and total deal number, accounting for 24% of all Saudi Arabia startup funding in 2022 and securing a total of US$239 million raised across 28 deals. The sum represents an…

UAE-based Alaan, the leading spend management platform for Middle Eastern businesses, announced today that it has raised $4.5 Million Pre-Series A Funding, backed by Presight Capital, Y Combinator, and angel investors. Together with the $2.5M seed round last year, Alaan has raised a total of $7M in equity. Alaan’s platform allows businesses to instantly issue physical and virtual cards for managing all their business expenses, including e-commerce transactions, SaaS subscriptions, vendor payments, government services, or in-store purchases. These cards can be set up with daily or monthly spend limits and can also be locked to be used only with specific…

Tabby, MENA’s  shopping and financial services app, has raised $58 million from Sequoia Capital India, STV and PayPal Ventures, Mubadala Investment Capital, Arbor Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst in a Series C round which values the company at $660 million. The fundraise will be used to expand Tabby’s product line into next-gen consumer financial services and support the company’s growing operations. This round makes Tabby one of the most valuable startups in MENA and the first in the GCC to receive funding from PayPal Ventures. Hosam Arab, CEO and Co-Founder of Tabby, said: “With rising interest rates and growing inflation, it…

BFC Payments , the Fintech arm of BFC Group Holdings W.L.L., has collaborated with M2P Fintech, an Asian largest API infrastructure company, to launch an advanced multicurrency card, BFC PAY TRAVEL BUDDY that offers international travelers great convenience as it allows for fast top-ups, instant currency conversion, worldwide shopping, dining and lots more. The technology stack for issuing the card is powered by M2P Fintech along with Visa Platinum as the network partner. With the rise in business and leisure travel post-pandemic, a safe and seamless digital payment instrument like the multi-currency prepaid card becomes crucial for the traveler. A…

Payment solutions provider BPC announced that it has extended its collaboration with Bahrain-based International Payment Services (IPS). As part of the agreement, BPC will allow IPS to extend the use of its open system e-payment platform ‘SmartVista’. Headquartered in Bahrain and licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain, IPS supports banks and financial institutions to manage their end-to-end payment processing functions. Since the launch of IPS in 2017, BPC has been engaged with IPS to help develop, certify products to support banks, fintechs, government entities and merchants with its digital payments platform. Through the use of BPC’s SmartVista platform, IPS…

Mashreq, one of the leading financial institutions in the UAE, has appointed Radu Topliceanu as its new Head of Neo and Personal Banking. In this role, he will help Mashreq grow its digital bank Neo as well as its Personal Banking Division. Radu’s responsibilities include developing innovative digital banking propositions, designing customer journeys to deliver superior customer experience, driving customer acquisition, revenue, and profitability, and building synergies with external stakeholders in the digital ecosystem to support Mashreq’s expansion plans. During his over two decades of retail banking experience, Radu has established himself as a digital banking pioneer, using comprehensive expertise…