UK business payments platform Berg announced that it will be introducing its multi-currency and cross-border transaction services to SMEs in the UAE. Using Berg’s platform, SMEs will be able to manage their finances digitally on a mobile app, access multi-currency IBANs, make cross-border payments, and manage employee cards. Founded in 2022 and headquartered in London, Berg aims to target the growing ecommerce segment, as well as businesses with cross-border trade and transaction needs. The company is founded and headed by Dennis Nemerov, who previously co-founded sharia-compliant business account startup Rizq and digital banking app Maneta. “We aim to onboard and…

The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has granted a payment license to Riyadh-based money app Tweeq to provide e-wallet services, bringing the total number of payment companies licensed by SAMA to 23. This comes in addition to five companies which have been granted in-principle approvals, as well as companies operating under the central bank’s regulatory sandboxes. Other companies that have received a payment license from SAMA recently include the Arab Sea Financial Company, Fatoraah, and mobile payment service provider Tiqmo. According to Fintech Saudi, the number of active fintech companies in Saudi Arabia rose by 79% in the past year, with funding inflows…

Hex Trust, a digital asset custodian licensed in Hong Kong and Singapore, has received a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) license from Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA). The MVP license allows Hex Trust to provide a range of virtual asset services to institutional clients and investors in Dubai including virtual assets custodial services, broker-dealer services, and staking services. Hex Trust received its provisional license from VARA and opened its MENA headquarters in Dubai in June 2022. The office is headed by Filippo Buzzi who was previously with financial consulting group Fidinam. The company last raised a US$88 million Series B…

In Saudi Arabia, the fintech industry has risen significantly over the past year, a growth that’s evidenced by accelerated new business creation and soaring investment activity. In 2023, the momentum is expected to continue, building on new regulations, supportive initiatives and favorable developments in the fields of open banking and digital banking, a new report says. The Fintech Saudi Annual Report 2021/2022, released last week by Fintech Saudi, a body introduced by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) to support the development of the local fintech ecosystem, takes a look at the evolution of the domestic fintech industry over the…

Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum has received in-principle approval from the Abu Dhabi Global Market’s (ADGM) Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) to expand to the city. The approval allows the company to access Abu Dhabi’s established wealth management market and government support, and the opportunity to offers its crypto services. Giulia Finkbeiner-Bertoni, formerly Head of External Asset Management at Swiss financial group Mirabaud’s Middle East office, has been appointed to head Sygnum’s new Abu Dhabi office. Sygnum aims to serve the Middle East market with its digital asset banking, asset management, tokenisation and B2B banking services regulated by FINMA in…

Saudi purchase order financing platform Ta3meed has selected Moneythor’s personal finance management and loyalty solutions to enhance its platform with loyalty features. Under the partnership, Moneythor will provide Ta3meed’s loyalty programme with data-driven personalisation capabilities to strengthen its digital engagement with users. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Singapore, Moneythor also provides financial institutions with digital banking, open banking, financial wellbeing, and chatbot solutions. Ta3meed, which means purchase order in Arabic, was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Riyadh. The company’s automated financing platform is enabled by Mambu’s banking platform. “The partnership with Moneythor will give Ta3meed a competitive…

Insurtech CoverGo announced that it is expanding to the Middle East in partnership with insurtech fund Noria Capital following its US$15 million Series A fundraise earlier this year. The company’s Series A, which closed in May 2022, was led by SemperVirens venture capital fund’s Caribou Honig, who is also founder of insurtech conference InsureTech Connect. CoverGo is a no-code insurance SaaS platform for P&C, health, and life insurance companies with clients such as AXA, Bupa, MSIG (MS&AD), Dai-ichi Life, DBS Bank, and Bank of China Group Insurance. The company’s expansion in the Middle East is led by newly appointed Regional…

Crypto custodian Komainu has received a minimal viable product (MVP) licence from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), following its receipt of a provisional approval in July 2022. The MVP licence allows Komainu, which specialises in institutional digital asset custody services, to offer institutional clients in the UAE virtual asset custodial and management services. Komainu is a hybrid custodian for institutional digital asset investors created by the Japanese investment bank Nomura, digital asset manager CoinShares and digital asset security company Ledger. VARA was established under the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulation Law earlier this year. The regulator has also awarded Binance…

UAE spend management platform Qashio has raised US$10 million in equity and non-equity seed funding in a round led by One Way Ventures, a US fund investing in immigrant founders. The round included participation from MITAA, Cadorna Ventures, Sanabil 500 MENA, Nuwa Capital, Iliad Partners, Phoenix Investments, as well as family offices and angel investors. Founded in 2021, Qashio’s enterprise spend management platform provides businesses with real-time tracking for every business expense to enable them to make informed cash flow decisions. The company’s virtual and physical cards combined with its software also allows businesses to manage their spending in a…

Visa announced that it will pilot payment innovations such as instantly-issued prepaid cards and facial biometric payments at the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. To this end, the company has installed 5,300 contactless-enabled payment terminals at official FIFA venues, including eight stadiums and the FIFA Fan Festival. Facial recognition payments technology will be used for the first time ever in Qatar during the world cup enabled by a collaboration between Qatar National Bank, POP ID, and Visa. Visa will also pilot a digital prepaid card that can be added to a mobile wallet, and roll out its Tap to…

Canadian open banking solutions provider Salt Edge is expanding to Saudi Arabia to enable financial institutions to share their transactional data, initiate payments, and meet compliance requirements. The company hopes to help Saudi banks comply with SAMA’s new open banking framework which requires banks to make their account information APIs available by the end of 2022 and payment initiation APIs available by March 2023. Salt Edge is part of the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA)’s Open Banking Lab and is in process of applying to SAMA’s open banking regulatory sandbox for several use cases. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Ottawa,…

Kuwaiti open banking platform Spare has partnered with Bahraini payment services provider EazyPay to enable Spare merchants in Bahrain to accept open banking payments. Customers of Spare’s merchants in Bahrain will be able to make payments directly from their bank account, while EazyPay will also leverage Spare’s open banking connections to provide new products and services to its customers. Founded in 2018, Spare provides a personal finance app and an open banking payment solution for businesses. The company recently joined the Saudi Central Bank’s open banking regulatory sandbox. EazyPay is a point-of-sale and online payment gateway acquiring service provider established…

Dubai-based trading app baraka has closed a US$20 million Series A round led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, with participation from investment advisory firm Knollwood. The company says that the funding will be used for regional licensing and expansion, as well as developing features for regional stock trading, dividend reinvestment, and extended hours trading. baraka first introduced its commission-free mobile trading platform in early 2021. The app now provides access to over 6,000 US stocks and ETFs, in addition to daily financial news in English and Arabic. baraka is based in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), regulated by the…

The MENA Fintech Association’s (MFTA) Open Finance Working Group has published a new report on the rise of open banking and embedded finance in the Middle East and North Africa. The report found that regulators in the region have been responding to the growth in open banking activities through new frameworks, licenses and laws to ensure consumer safety. For example, the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) launched its open banking framework in October 2020, while the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) issued its framework in November 2022. In the UAE, DIFC-based Tarabut Gateway became the first open banking platform to receive…

Swiss corporate services provider Alpadis Group has obtained a license to operate in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and has opened its second office in Dubai. The group’s new office, based in the DIFC Gate Village, aims to serve financial services clients including investment funds, investment managers, family offices, and private investors. Alpadis’ services include helping firms set up in DIFC, wealth management, foundations, succession planning and other services that may or may not require regulatory and compliance needs. The group was founded in Switzerland in 2005 and has offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Japan. The…

Israeli venture investing platform OurCrowd announced plans to invest US$60 million in its Abu Dhabi operations with a new office and AI tech hub, enabled by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO). The two new initiatives, which were announced during Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW), will see OurCrowd expanding its team based at Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) to 60 over the next four years. The new AI tech hub is established as Integrated Data Intelligence (IDI), a commercial company based at ADGM’s Hub71, and will develop AI solutions for business. IDI will be headed by Dr Hasanat Dewan, who…

UAE commercial bank Invest Bank has selected Swiss banktech company Temenos to take its digital and core banking services to the cloud, in partnership with IT service provider NdcTech. Invest Bank will adopt an end-to-end retail and wholesale banking solution on Temenos Banking Cloud for elasticity to meet growing customer demand, especially among Gen Z and millennials. Planned enhancements include instant onboarding and origination with automated approvals based on AI-based rules, as well as improved operational efficiency, automation and digitised workflows. Invest Bank says that it also intends to leverage Temenos’ open-API architecture and extensibility framework to go beyond banking…

The third day of the inaugural Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW), organised by Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), was held under the overarching theme “Crypto Abu Dhabi”. Crypto Abu Dhabi focused on key topics including decentralised finance, cryptography, trading, cryptocurrencies, blockchain tech, wallets, web3, tokenisation, NFTs, and smart contracts. Among the day’s announcements was the launch of the Abu Dhabi Crypto Hub, a web based interactive platform that provides users information and access to ADGM’s existing virtual assets firms. The Future of Finance Youth Circle was also launched to enable knowledge sharing between leadership and young individuals to inspire them…

The Abu Dhabi Global Market Academy (ADGMA) has launched a School of Digital Assets in partnership with Binance Academy, Avnon Academy, and the Center for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE). ADGMA’s new School of Digital Assets will offer foundation, intermediate and advance level programmes that explore themes of metaverse, NFTs, crypto, blockchain, DeFi and cybersecurity. Additionally, ADGMA also launched an open access blockchain and crypto learning hub in partnership with Binance Academy — the first government crypto education initiative of its kind to be rolled out in the region. The companies aim to build digital programmes in over 20 languages…

The inaugural MENA Fintech Awards organised by the MENA Fintech Association (MFTA) came to a close on 15 November with an awards ceremony hosted by the Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW). The awards, organised in partnership with consulting firm Grant Thornton, honours the best and leading startups in the fintech industry across the Middle East and North Africa. Founded in 2018, the MFTA is a not-for-profit group established to represent and offer a regional voice for the growing number of fintech firms in the MENA region. This is the first edition of both the MENA Fintech Awards and Abu Dhabi Finance…