Marhaba, fintech friends!

Fintech funding goes on radio silence across MENA. In their place: partnerships, product launches, market entries and regulatory milestones.

At first glance, that might feel like a slowdown, especially compared to markets like the US, where funding rounds hit the news cycle weekly. But does less capital raised mean less momentum? Or are we measuring with the wrong yardstick?

MENA fintech operates in a very different context. The ecosystem is still emerging, fragmented across countries with varied regulatory environments. Here, partnerships, whether with banks, telecoms, insurers or government entities, play a critical role in enabling market entry and building trust. Regulatory approvals and licensing regimes are evolving and crucial for legitimizing fintech operations. These factors mean that growth often comes through collaboration and ecosystem-building before independent scaling becomes feasible.

So perhaps the more interesting question is: what does progress look like in an ecosystem that is still fragmented, still being regulated into existence and still stitching together the pipes of digital finance?

The answers are in the last 2 weeks of headlines: ecosystem-building over blitzscaling, regulatory developments over valuations and long-term infrastructure over short-term capital cycles.

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

Abhi expands its earned wage access platform to Saudi Arabia, in partnership with Alraedah Digital Solutions

Wio Bank partners with Xero to helps their business customers manage accounting processes more efficiently with automated bank feeds, reconciliation and real-time financial insights

Worldpay and Mastercard join forces to improve domestic and cross-border payouts to cards

AlRayan Bank, one of Qatar’s largest Islamic banks, goes live with Finastra Corporate Channels: a unified and secure digital corporate banking experience 

Qi Card, Iraq’s largest digital payments provider, partners with Turkish Airlines to launch a co-branded Mastercard debit card for Iraqi consumers

Zand partners with Mastercard to offer faster and more secure international transfers for Zand customers

Oman’s OBD Holding selects Estonian core banking provider, Tuum, to launch Uptex Bank

UAE digital asset platform, Fasset, expands to Bahrain, allowing residents of the Kingdom to invest in US companies, gold and crypto

Canadian digital asset infrastructure provider, Aquanow, partners with Bahrain’s SGB to enhance access to fiat banking services for institutional and enterprise clients in the digital asset sector

Egypt’s Fawry partners with FORSA to roll out BNPL services across the Fawry POS network in Egypt

Ant International makes inroads on its UAE expansion by: (1) partnering with ADIO to expand local fintech capabilities and (2) securing its CBUAE in-principal approval to offer payment and related services across the country

Mastercard partners with UAE free zone, IFZA, and Global Tax Assistant to introduce a fully digital business registration process

Africa’s MDP collaborates with BPC to develop a next-gen third-party processing center that delivers secure, scalable and integrated payment services across MEA

Abu Dhabi’s Presight, signs an MoU with Dow Jones Factiva to develop more advanced and context-aware systems of governance and risk management for organizations in high-stakes sectors of the financial ecosystem

Wio Bank users can now get car insurance within the app, thanks to a new partnership with digital insurance platform, Shory.

🏛 Licensing & Regulations

Robinhood applies for a DFSA license to launch its UAE operations

Mantas, UAE-based insurtech start-up, receives in-principal approval for a category 4 license to operate as a managing general agent

The CBE grants Misr Digital Innovation approval to transition to onebank, a fully digital bank and the first in Egypt, with plans to roll out its products and services in 2026

Al-An Alkhaligia, Saudi fintech, gets licensed to launch consumer microfinance services by the Saudi Central Bank

Laser Digital, UAE-based crypto trading and servicing subsidiary of Japan’s Nomura, gets a limited license from Dubai’s VARA to pilot over-the-counter crypto derivatives 

Digified, Cairo-based digital identity provider, receives regulatory approval from Egypt’s FRA to offer its AI-powered digital onboarding, eKYC and e-contracting services to non-banking financial institutions across the country.

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 ✌🏼