Marhaba, fintech friends!

I came across a post on LinkedIn earlier this week from Sarwa, a UAE-based investment app that is also an interesting barometer for how over 100,000 retail investors in MENA are thinking, and it caught my eye.

Gold, silver and bitcoin made it into the top 5 trades in October, while equities unusually took 2 spots. It's a first. Nvidia stayed number one (no surprises there), but the rest of the leaderboard switched.

It's easy to dismiss as a passing trend, but I think it's telling of a shift in regional mindset: investors are protecting portfolios. Gold and silver are guardrails. Bitcoin is insurance.

Here are more things that caught my eye this week in fintech across MENA!

💸 Fundraises and Exits

🇦🇪 Property Finder, MENA's largest property platform, invests in UAE-based digital real estate investment platform, Stake

🇦🇪 Tabby, Saudi-based buy-now-pay-later fintech, completes a secondary share sale at a $4.5 billion valuation with HSG, Boyu Capital and other investors acquiring shares from existing shareholders

🇸🇦 Stream, a Saudi-based billing and payments platform, raises $4 million in seed funding.

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

🇦🇪 Numou, an ADGM subsidiary, launches Procurement Financing: an initiative that helps SMEs with government or corporate contracts access funding

🇧🇭 Binance introduces direct USD deposits and withdrawals, through BPay Global, a payment service provider licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain

🇦🇪 Emirates Investment Bank plans to adopt Avaloq to modernize its core operations, strengthen front-office capabilities and upgrade digital banking channels

🇸🇦 Jeel partners with Mambu, a global cloud-native core banking platform, to support the newly launched Jeel Sandbox

🇸🇦🇯🇵 JCB International, a subsidiary of Japan's only international payment brand JCB, signs an MoU with Saudi's STC Bank to expand card acceptance for JCB customers in Saudi

🇸🇦 Sahm Capital partners with Nasdaq Data to launch Nasdaq TotalView and the Nasdaq-Sahm Capital Investor Education Program

🇦🇪 Alaan launches its employee equity buyback program, allowing team members to sell a portion of their vested stock options

🇦🇪 Ziina introduces the Ziina Business Card, their first digital card built in partnership with Visa

Today we’re launching Ziina زينة Business Card, our first digital card built in partnership with Visa 🚀 A digital card that lives inside your Apple Wallet, directly connected to your Ziina balance.… | Faisal Toukan | 35 comments

Today we’re launching Ziina زينة Business Card, our first digital card built in partnership with Visa 🚀 A digital card that lives inside your Apple Wallet, directly connected to your Ziina balance. This means the money you receive on Ziina is instantly available to spend anywhere contactless payments are accepted. This launch marks a major milestone for Ziina. We’re now the only licensed UAE fintech offering both acquiring and issuing, empowering users to receive and spend seamlessly within one platform. For businesses, this means unmatched cash flow: get paid by a client and pay your suppliers in the same moment. We’ve thought about every detail, not just in how Ziina Card works, but how it looks. The designs honor our region’s heritage through patterns rooted in Arab architecture. These geometric forms start as simple lines and grow into complete structures, reflecting the truth that we’re all building something, always evolving, never finished. A reminder that your potential has no ceiling. Ziina Card has been our most requested feature from hundreds of thousands of users, both businesses and individuals, and it’s finally here. We’ve always believed that financial services should adapt to how people actually live and work. Ziina Card is the natural evolution of that vision- your money, always accessible, working the way you need it to. Available now for all Ziina users. Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/dKx6ZSke | 35 comments on LinkedIn

LinkedInJames Evans

🇦🇪 Careem launches its corporate payments solution across multiple of its services through Careem for Business

🇪🇬 In partnership with Banque Misr, Egypt's Fawry offers Apple Pay to its customers

🇶🇦🇮🇪 QNB integrates TransferMate's technology into its platform to give customers access to international multi-currency collections and local account capabilities

🇸🇬🇧🇭 Singapore Gulf Bank plans to use Fireblocks' enterprise platform for custody, settlement, trading and stablecoin payments

🇦🇪 Tokinvest partners with API Global to give investors access to prime real estate through secure, fractionalised tokens.

🏛 Licensing & Regulations

🇴🇲 Thawani Pay becomes the first fintech in Oman to be licensed by Visa to issue credit cards

🇱🇧🇨🇦 The Canadian regulatory authorities grants Whish Money, Lebanon-based remittances and mobile wallet platform, a financial services licenses to operate in Canada.

🎆 In other news...

🌍 6 fintechs from MENA make it on CB Insights' Fintech 100: Beam, enza, Thndr, Khazna, Nymcard and CredibleX.

Thank you for tuning in!

If you have feedback on this edition of This Week in Fintech MENA, please reach out on LinkedIn.

Until next week,

Salam ✌🏼