Waleed Saeed Abdul Salam Al Awadhi has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Securities and Commodities Authority, with the rank of Under-Secretary.

Also read: UAE stock markets surge by Dhs257bn in 2024

Securities and Commodities Authority is also the regulator of the UAE stock market.

According to a report by state news agency (WAM), his appointment comes through a federal decree issued by the UAE President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Previous experience

Waleed Al Awadhi brings over 22 years of expertise in financial services, regulatory frameworks, and banking operations.

He has previously served as CEO of the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and held the position of Deputy Head of retail banking at Emirates Islamic Bank.

His career also includes senior roles at Sama Dubai (real estate development) and Etisalat, along with membership on numerous national boards and committees across the UAE.

Education

Al Awadhi is a graduate of the Mohammed bin Rashid Programme for Leadership Development (2020) and has completed executive education at the Harvard Business School in 2017.

He also holds a Master’s degree in Law, specialising in arbitration, dispute resolution, financial crimes, and anti-money laundering, reflecting his commitment to excellence and innovation in his field.

The dollar drifted lower and stocks were cautiously positive on Monday, January 20, as investors awaited an expected flurry of policy announcements during the first hours of Donald Trump’s second presidency and eyed a rate hike in Japan at the end of the week.

Read: Melania Trump launches cryptocurrency meme coin

Trump takes the oath of office at noon Eastern Time (1700 GMT), and promised a “brand new day of American strength” at a rally on Sunday, January 19.

New executive orders expected

He has stoked expectations of a slew of executive orders right away and, in a reminder of his unpredictability, launched a digital token on Friday, January 17, which soared above $70 before sliding to around $50 as traders turned uneasy.

Important-Hussain Sajwani: Gulf investments in US to soar under Trump

Monday is a US holiday, so the first responses to his inauguration in financial markets may be felt in foreign exchange and then during Asian trade on Tuesday.

“The fall back in Treasury yields revived equity markets, with European indices doing particularly well,” said a note from the Edmond de Rothschild Group.

Shorter-dated euro zone bond yields steadied by 0923 GMT.

“Trump dominates everything in terms of where we go,” Societe Generale chief FX strategist Kit Juckes said in his morning note, referencing markets in general and noting that trader positions betting on a rise in the dollar compared with other currencies had reached their highest since 2022.

The dollar is up more than 8 per cent on the euro EUR=EBS since September and at $1.0309 is not far from last week’s two-year high. But so much is priced in that some analysts feel a more gradual start to U.S. tariff hikes may draw out some sellers.

Threat of tariffs

Trump has threatened tariffs of as much as 10 per cent on global imports and 60 per cent on Chinese goods, plus a 25 per cent import surcharge on Canadian and Mexican products, duties that trade experts say would upend trade flows, raise costs, and draw retaliation.

Bitcoin BTC= shot up 4 per cent, hitting a record high of $108,943, while Trump’s newly-created cryptocurrency launched on Friday – known as $TRUMP – soared to nearly $12bn in market value, drawing in billions in trading volume. Melania Trump’s cryptocurrency launched on Sunday and hit a market cap of $1.9 billion.

China focus

China is in focus as the target of the harshest potential trade levies. Investors have cheered better-than-expected Chinese growth data and a Friday phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping that left both upbeat.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HSI closed up 1.8 per cent and China’s yuan rallied.

“Everyone is waiting for these trade negotiations to begin and see what kind of attitude Xi Jinping takes with Trump,” Ken Peng, head of Asia investment strategy at Citi Wealth told reporters in Singapore at an outlook briefing.

“That relationship between the two gentlemen has become very important as a leading indicator of policies.”

The yuan is seen likely to slowly adjust to any shifts in trade policy and touched a two-week high of 7.3088 to the dollar CNY=CFXS.

Japan’s yen JPY=EBS rallied last week as remarks from Bank of Japan policymakers were taken as hints that a rate cut is likely on Friday, January 17.

It was last slightly stronger at 156.335 per dollar and rates markets priced about an 80 per cent chance of a 25 basis point rate hike.

The International Monetary Fund has lowered its 2025 GDP growth projection for Saudi Arabia to 3.3 per cent, mainly due to extended oil production cuts, it said on Friday in the latest update to its global outlook.

It also trimmed its 2024 growth estimate for the Gulf state to 1.4 per cent.

In its October Regional Economic Outlook report, the IMF had estimated growth would accelerate to 4.6 per cent this year from a projected 1.5 per cent in 2024.

The cut to Saudi Arabia’s GDP forecast led to an overall lowering of the IMF’s growth projection for the Middle East and Central Asia region to 3.6 per cent this year. That was down from its October forecast of 3.9 per cent.

“In the Middle East and Central Asia, growth is projected to pick up, but less than expected in October,” the IMF said in Friday’s update.

“This mainly reflects a 1.3 percentage point downward revision to 2025 growth in Saudi Arabia, mostly driven by the extension of OPEC+ production cuts.”

Most analysts expected economic growth in Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, to pick up sharply in 2025 on higher oil output after two years of modest growth. An October Reuters poll forecast the Saudi economy would expand 4.4 per cent in 2025, while the Saudi government projects 2025 growth at 4.6 per cent.

However, in December, the OPEC+ nations, which include Saudi Arabia, pushed back the start of oil output rises by three months until April, and further extended the full unwinding of cuts due to weak demand and rising production outside the group.

Declining oil prices and extended cuts to oil production have weighed on Saudi Arabia’s revenue in recent years, but Riyadh is pushing ahead with a spending plan to boost non-oil growth and deliver on its economic transformation plan.

The IMF said it expected energy commodity prices to decline by 2.6 per cent in 2025, more than assumed in October.

Read: Saudi Arabia approves 2025 state budget, forecasts $27bn deficit

For years, payment service providers (PSPs), the companies that facilitate electronic payments, derived substantial and reliable revenue from processing payments. However, these companies, which include banks, non-bank acquirers, and some financial technology (fintech) providers, now confront narrower margins as payment processing and money movement become cheaper.

To preserve their revenue and market share, PSPs need to rethink their business model and take advantage of their customer relationships to offer more diversified services that meet the changing needs of consumers and businesses.

To appreciate the magnitude of the threat PSPs face and their urgency to adapt, it is critical to understand the sea change in the payments space in a relatively short period.

Global payment networks like Visa, Mastercard, and SWIFT, once the backbone of the money movement, are facing increasing competition from local and regional players.

Domestic infrastructures — such as instant payment systems like Sarie in Saudi Arabia and Aani in the UAE, domestic card schemes such as Mada and Jaywan, and local digital wallets like stc pay (now bank), Barq, and Hala in Saudi Arabia, or e& money and du Pay in the UAE — provide faster payments tailored to local needs with strong regulatory support. These payment mechanisms meet consumer demand more effectively at a lower cost than traditional networks.

Growth in real-time payment transactions

Real-time payment grew 42 per cent year-over-year in 2023, reaching 266 billion transactions, with projections to reach 575 billion transactions by 2028. On the other hand, domestic digital wallets have built strong customer bases. For example, we calculate that digital wallets in Saudi Arabia, a cheap domestic payment method, have attracted over 15 million users by 2024.

Moreover, these low-cost payment providers are no longer confined within national borders — further squeezing the margins in cross-border payments. For example, UAE merchants can accept payment solutions such as WeChat and Alipay from China. Increasingly, they are interlinked and so provide the convenient “glocal” (global and local) solutions that customers favour.

The BIS Innovation Hub’s Project Nexus also supports the interoperability of domestic instant payment systems, driving cost efficiencies in cross-border payments. Standards like ISO 20022, expected to cover 80 per cent of global high-value payments by 2025, are part of this change.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), an emerging technology, could facilitate a further shift. Regulatory initiatives like open banking, and cooperation frameworks such as the G20’s Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-border Payments, are pushing for lower costs and greater accessibility, further encouraging the use of alternative payment rails.

Strategies for payment solution providers

In response, PSPs take advantage of their customer relationships, their knowledge of their customers, and their strong regulatory compliance, to seek new avenues for growth in three ways.

First, PSPs can position themselves as one-stop shops for all specialised payment services, including alternative payment methods (APMs), payment orchestration, and anti-fraud solutions.

By integrating APMs, PSPs can cater to customers’ diverse payment preferences, and cover emerging technologies such as central bank digital currencies, which some 94 per cent of central banks were involved with at the end of 2003.

Meanwhile, payment orchestration ensures efficient routing of transactions, reducing costs and enhancing speed, and anti-fraud solutions bolster transaction security, build trust, and protect customer assets.

Second, PSPs should offer a broader range of services beyond payments. By analysing data and insights from payment interactions, PSPs can underwrite loans for thin-file customers, broadening financial inclusion and opening new avenues for lending.

Additionally, PSPs can offer business and personal financial management tools that enhance efficiency through forecasting, budgeting, and personalised financial recommendations.

Third, PSPs should offer a wide range of services in areas closely related to payments given the central position they play in the operations of their customers.

By establishing strategic partnerships, PSPs could become curators of a vast ecosystem of solutions that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could use to digitally transform their businesses, enabling them to manage finances, inventory, and sales from a single platform.

PSPs could also appeal to larger enterprises by facilitating treasury and cash management in enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrations which connect core business processes like finance, inventory, and sales into a single platform, thereby streamlining operations.

Accounting is an example of this new suite of offerings generation. A PSP could partner with an accounting solution provider to integrate accounting with payments to create a solution with significant efficiencies. Or the PSP could develop industry-specific solutions, such as order management systems for restaurants or retail.

Further, PSPs could use open banking and application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate third-party fintech solutions to offer a comprehensive suite of tools.

PSPs have an opportunity to seize the initiative, expand the services they offer and diversify their revenue streams. They have customer relationships, a knowledge of customer needs, and strong regulatory practices. Now is the time to seize the opportunity.

Dr Antoine Khadige is a partner, and Basar Okay is a principal at Strategy& Middle East part of the PwC network.

ADQ-backed Wizz Air Abu Dhabi operated more than 19,000 flights, offering more than 4.4 million ultra-low-cost seats and carrying over 3.5 million point-to-point passengers in 2024, registering an over 20 per cent year-on-year growth in both seat capacity and the number of passengers carried.

The budget carrier carried more than 1.2 million international visitors to Abu Dhabi in 2024, contributing 25 per cent to Zayed International Airport’s point-to-point traffic while supporting the sustainable growth of the emirate’s tourism sector.

“In 2024, we connected people to create great memories, accelerating the growth of the emirate of Abu Dhabi as a global tourism hub. Our exciting memberships, such as the one-of-a-kind All You Can Fly, provide efficient and seamless opportunities for visiting incredible destinations, enabling affordable travel throughout the region,” said Johan Eidhagen, managing director of Wizz Air Abu Dhabi.

Wizz Air is an important contributor to Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Strategy 2030, which seeks to boost visitor numbers to 39.3 million and increase the sector’s GDP contribution to a record Dhs90bn by the end of the decade.

The airline introduced the region’s first flight subscription models, the Wizz MultiPass and All You Can Fly, which sold out twice within 48 hours in 2024, underscoring its commitment to affordability and accessibility. It optimised its network by increasing its capacity by 40 per cent on its most popular routes, ensuring a more flexible, reliable, and affordable travel experience for its customers.

The carrier also expanded the boundaries of the flight membership service WIZZ MultiPass, allowing frequent travellers to fly to or from the UAE every month, explore multiple destinations, and save more. WIZZ MultiPass enables passengers to lock in a fixed price for tickets and baggage, unaffected by seasonality, for an entire year.

Wizz Air currently connects Abu Dhabi to more than 30 destinations, flying to must-visit vibrant cities and hidden gems across the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia.

The airline is expanding convenient and affordable travel for everyone and allowing for convenient, self-connecting travel across the wider Wizz Air network via Abu Dhabi, with an enhanced winter schedule providing 40 per cent more seat capacity to explore culturally rich destinations.

Read: Wizz Air launches first long-haul service from Abu Dhabi to Milan