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Fintech reporting from Middle East. Stories across banking, payments, infrastructure, capital and policy that touch this region.

116 STORIES PUBLISHED · UPDATED DAILY

MIDDLE EAST · 3 MIN READ · 24 SEP 2026

UAE Central Bank Bars Bank Melli Iran Branches From All Transactions With Iran

The regulator cited anti-money laundering and proliferation financing failures a month after the US sanctioned the bank's Dubai branch manager.

MIDDLE EAST

Paymob Raises $35 Million as Gulf Business Nears Half of Revenue

24 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Five Minutes With…. Ahmet Kayhan, Chief Payments & Digital Assets Officer at VEON

22 SEP 2026

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MIDDLE EAST

Foloosi Secures CBUAE In-Principle Approval for Payments Licence

The UAE payments company has processed AED 7 billion for more than 10,000 merchants on a comparatively small disclosed funding history.

22 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Only 10% of Banks Say Stablecoin Capabilities Are Live, Survey Finds

In a RedCompass Labs survey of 300 payments professionals, most report their bank is preparing for stablecoins, but few say they have moved past planning into production.

18 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Open Cross-Border Acceptance of National Cards

Saudi Arabia's mada and Qatar's Himyan national payment cards will gain cross-border acceptance in each other's markets, regulators announced at Money20/20 Middle East.

17 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Saudi Fintech barq Raises $329.5 Million, Becomes Kingdom’s Newest Unicorn

barq's Series A, one of the largest in Saudi fintech this year, values the two year old digital payments platform at $1.85 billion.

17 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Foodics Launches Capital 2.0, an AI-Driven Restaurant Financing at Money20/20

Foodics has launched Capital 2.0, an automated financing product that pre-qualifies restaurants using their own performance data and disburses funds within four hours.

15 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

baraka Brings DFM and ADX Stocks to Its Investment App

baraka now lets customers invest directly in Dubai Financial Market and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange listed stocks, funded in dirhams, through its existing app.

14 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

TerraPay Connects Xend Network to Alipay+ for Cross-Border QR Payments

TerraPay has linked its Xend wallet interoperability network to Alipay+, letting African digital wallet users pay at more than 150 million merchants worldwide by scanning a QR code.

11 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Network International Launches UAE’s First In-Store Stablecoin Pilot

Network International has launched a pilot letting shoppers pay with DDSC, the dirham-backed stablecoin, at two UAE retail locations using existing card terminals.

11 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Dubai’s AXON Registers as Money Services Business in Canada

AXON has registered its Canadian entity with FINTRAC as a Money Services Business, part of a push into North America alongside a European neobank partnership.

10 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

PayTabs to Acquire Amazon Payment Services’ MENA Arm for $100M+

PayTabs Group has agreed to buy Amazon Payment Services' Middle East and North Africa business, a deal expected to make it the region's largest payments infrastructure provider.

9 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Five Minutes With…. Saurabh Shah, Co-Founder of Spare

Spare co-founder Saurabh Shah on how one Open Finance infrastructure layer serves partners as different as landlords and lenders, what Rentify's affordability check actually pulls from a tenant's bank, and what replaces a post-dated cheque's sense of security once the cheque is gone.

8 SEP 2026

MIDDLE EAST

Standard Chartered Becomes First G-SIB to Offer UAE Crypto Trading

Standard Chartered has extended its institutional Bitcoin and Ether spot trading service to the UAE, becoming the first Global Systemically Important Bank to offer it in the region.

8 SEP 2026