Marhaba, fintech friends!
Bringing you another 2-weeks worth of fintech news across MENA.
Here are some of the highlights:
Mal's $230 million seed round
The region’s first consumer-initiated open-banking transaction,
Partnership galore for Mastercard and
A new digital payments network for Egypt’s non-banking financial sector.
Let's dive right in!
💸 Fundraises and Exits
🇦🇪 Mal, an AI-driven Islamic digital bank, raises $230 million in seed funding, making it the largest seed-stage financing round ever recorded in MENA
🇧🇭 Flooss, a Bahrain-based Sharia-compliant digital consumer financing platform, secures a $22 million credit facility structured by Shorooq.
💰 Funds
🇸🇦 Red Sea Global partners with Bunat VC to launch a venture fund focused on Saudi-based, early and growth-stage companies that are AI-native or AI-enabled
🇦🇪 MEVP receives a capital commitment from Badir Fund for Developing SMEs for its MEVF IV
🇴🇲🇸🇦🇺🇸 Bank Muscat (Oman) and Derayah Financial (Saudi) participate in Alpaca's $150 million Series D round.
🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches
🇦🇪 Zand fully integrates the XDC Network, an enterprise-grade blockchain platform, to allow corporate and institutional clients to custody assets on the network through the bank's digital asset custody service
🇪🇬 MoneyHash partners with open banking infrastructure provider, Spare, to allow merchants in the UAE to offer a Pay-by-Bank option
🇦🇪 botim money partners with Mastercard, allowing its users to send money from the UAE to more than 150 countries
🇪🇬 Mastercard provides ABK-Egypt with digital payment solutions
🇦🇪 Lean Technologies, open banking infrastructure provider, and Ziina, a payment platform, launch the country's first customer-initiated Open Finance payment
🇦🇪 Mastercard, Tappy Technologies, Thales and FAB launch the Fitness Payment Ring
🇴🇲 Thawani Pay partners with Network International, allowing the latter to provide credit card processing services
🇦🇪 Emirates NBD issues AED 1 billion in 3-year fixed-rate digitally native note - the first AED-denominated digital bond and largest public digital bond in the MENA region
🇦🇪 NEO PAY partners with Wio Bank to introduce a PoS lending solution for SME merchants across the UAE
🇪🇬 Contact partners with Al Safy Group to develop a financing platform for consumer finance.
🏛 Licensing & Regulations
🇦🇪 The Dubai Financial Services Authority updates its regulatory framework for crypto tokens, including a shift from a DFSA-led suitability assessment to firm-led process
🇪🇬 Granite receives its FRA license to launch Egypt's first fully digital money market account
🇪🇬 The FRA launches the first integrated digital payment network for the non-banking financial sector
🇪🇬 The CBE grants Arab Financial Services a SoftPOS license to introduce tap-to-phone payment solutions nationwide
🇲🇦 Morocco's Bank Al-Maghrib publishes a new fintech regulatory guide
🇪🇬 Egypt's FRA grants Orion Consumer Finance (algo) a consumer finance license
🇪🇬 Egypt's FRA grants EGX its first license to operate a futures exchange for derivatives on securities listed in the Egyptian market.
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Until next week,
Salam ✌🏼
