India’s markets regulator plans to tighten oversight of how companies use equity capital raised from public markets, according to a copy of draft proposals reviewed by Reuters.

The proposals are aimed at bolstering investor confidence and accountability of issuers at a time when fundraising momentum has cooled due to a selloff in Indian equity markets following the Iran conflict.

A panel of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will send the draft proposals to the regulator, which will seek market feedback before changing the rules. The proposed rules have not been previously reported.

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An email query sent to SEBI on Wednesday was not answered.

The proposals would give greater powers to monitoring agencies, typically credit rating firms, to hold firms accountable for how funds are used.

Proposed changes include direct reporting by rating agencies to stock exchanges, the introduction of penalties when companies do not cooperate, and a lower threshold of funds raised to trigger mandatory monitoring.

SEBI’s proposed framework mirrors the UK model, where the regulator mandates strict oversight of IPO proceeds by an investment bank or an advisory firm.

Currently, credit rating firms in India must monitor end-use of funds raised through public offers but often face a lack of information from companies and do not have to make those reports public.

Under the proposed changes, credit rating firms would submit reports on fund use directly to exchanges and would be required to flag companies that are not cooperating.

“Monitoring agency reports are intended to enhance transparency, accountability and safeguarding investor interests. Therefore, timely and adequate submission of report to exchanges is paramount to ensuring investor protection,” according to the draft proposals.

The regulator’s panel is also proposing penalties of INR50,000 ($522) per violation for issuers that obstruct monitoring.

The regulator also wants to lower the threshold for mandatory monitoring from INR1bn to INR500m, expanding scrutiny across IPOs, rights issues, preferential allotments and qualified institutional placements.

While the pipeline of IPOs approved and waiting for regulatory approvals is at a record high at INR2.5tn rupees across 190 companies, only 15 companies have gone to the market since the start of the calendar year, due to economic uncertainty stemming from the Middle East conflict.

“When companies come back to market to raise funds, tightened governance around capital deployment would help bolster investor sentiment,” a source with direct knowledge of the proposed rule changes said.

Goldman Sachs has raised its 2026 year-end forecast for the S&P 500 index to 8,000 from 7,600, citing continued strength in corporate earnings.

The target is 6.4 per cent higher than the index’s last close of 7,519.12.

“Earnings growth has powered the entire S&P 500 return so far this year, and we expect this dynamic to continue in the coming months,” Goldman Sachs said in a note on Tuesday.

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The brokerage also raised its S&P 500 earnings-per-share forecasts to $340 for 2026, implying 24 per cent year-on-year growth, and to $385 for 2027, a further 13 per cent increase.

Goldman’s move adds to a growing wave of bullish calls from brokerages, with UBS GWM the latest to lift its outlook last week, citing robust AI-driven earnings that could help offset inflationary pressures and supply risks from the Iran conflict.

The brokerage said AI infrastructure beneficiaries are set to drive about half of the index’s earnings growth this year, adding that while weak consumer spending and elevated costs pose risks, strong AI investments would offset these pressures.

“In addition, while S&P 500 earnings estimates have risen more quickly than index price appreciation, the semiconductor stocks at the heart of the AI infrastructure complex have recently outpaced their forward earnings,” analysts at Goldman Sachs said.

Dubai has expanded its traditional 3-day Super Sale into a five-day retail festival, aligning the event with Eid Al Adha and a broader push to deepen consumer engagement across shopping, tourism and entertainment.

The timing of this year’s edition is central to the decision, as Eid Al Adha remains one of the strongest retail periods in the UAE calendar, when residents and visitors typically spend on fashion, jewellery, homeware, beauty and travel-related experiences.

“The extension was mainly driven by the timing. This edition falls during Eid Al Adha, one of the strongest retail periods of the year, when families are already shopping for gifts, fashion, jewellery, homeware, beauty, dining and holiday experiences,” said Mohammed Feras Arayqat, acting VP, Retail Calendar and Promotions at Dubai Festivals and Retail Establishment (DFRE).

Read more-Dubai’s 3-Day Super Sale returns: Participating malls and brands revealed

By extending the event to five days, organisers are aiming to give shoppers more flexibility to plan purchases, compare offers across destinations and participate more widely in Dubai’s Eid in Dubai programme.

Building a citywide retail and tourism engine

Beyond extending the shopping window, the initiative is designed to strengthen Dubai’s integrated economic model, where retail activity is closely linked with tourism, hospitality and entertainment.

“The campaign is not only about discounts of up to 90 per cent; it is about building a full citywide retail moment across more than 500 brands, thousands of outlets, online platforms, loyalty programmes, mall activations and major incentives such as Win Your Home in Dubai,” Arayqat said.

The five-day format is also intended to encourage longer dwell time across the city, where a single shopping trip can evolve into a full-day or multi-day experience involving dining, leisure and events.

“It also supports Dubai’s wider strategy of turning key seasonal moments into economic drivers,” he added. “During this same period, the city is hosting Eid entertainment, Dubai Esports and Games Festival, Dubai Restaurant Week, live performances, cultural events and staycation offers.”

Curated brand mix across 500+ names

Participation in the Super Sale is carefully curated to ensure a broad retail offering that reflects Dubai’s positioning as a global shopping hub.

“For 3DSS, participation spans more than 500 brands across categories such as fashion, beauty, electronics, lifestyle, homeware, accessories, watches and jewellery,” Arayqat said.

Selection is not solely driven by discount depth, but by overall customer experience and category balance.

“The criteria are not only about the size of the discount. The strength of the offer, category relevance, customer demand, accessibility across malls and online channels, and the ability to deliver a strong shopping experience all play an important role,” he said.

This year’s lineup includes international and regional brands such as Balenciaga, Damas, Sephora, Gap, Magrabi, Next, Pan Home, Pandora, Sacoor Brothers, Toys R Us, Virgin Megastore, Mango, Lululemon, Home R Us, Geox, Borders and Harman House.

The mix is designed to appeal to a wide spectrum of consumers, from families preparing for Eid celebrations to tourists and residents planning larger discretionary purchases during the long weekend.

Retailers prepare for peak demand across five days

For participating retailers, the extended format requires more structured preparation across inventory, staffing and omnichannel operations.

“3DSS requires peak-season preparation. This includes stock planning, staff scheduling, pricing, in-store displays, online updates, loyalty programme integration, and customer service readiness,” Arayqat said.

Unlike shorter flash-sale formats, the five-day duration spreads demand more evenly, requiring retailers to maintain consistency in stock availability and customer experience throughout the event.

“The five-day format makes this even more important because demand is spread across a longer period rather than concentrated into one weekend,” he added.

Malls across Dubai are also preparing for increased footfall, with destinations such as Mall of the Emirates, City Centre Mirdif, Dubai Festival City Mall, Ibn Battuta Mall, Mercato, WAFI, Bluewaters, City Walk and The Beach JBR expected to see a surge in visitors combining shopping with Eid entertainment and dining.

Experience-led retail and exclusive launches

A notable shift in Dubai’s retail strategy is the growing emphasis on experiences, exclusive launches and reward ecosystems rather than price-led promotions alone.

“Yes, and this is becoming a bigger part of how retail campaigns are evolving in Dubai. Discounts remain the main attraction, but shoppers today are also looking for launches, experiences, rewards and reasons to visit a destination,” Arayqat said.

A key highlight this year includes the opening of the UAE’s first PACSUN store at Mall of the Emirates during the Super Sale period, reinforcing the event’s role as a platform for new retail activations.

Brands are also increasingly leveraging loyalty programmes and reward structures to enhance value.

During the campaign, shoppers can access programmes such as BLUE Rewards, SHARE, Amber, Tickit, AURA, Privilege Plus, MUSE, Shukran, Club Apparel and Skywards Everyday.

“This means the experience is no longer just about getting a discount; it is about saving, earning rewards and unlocking further value through the citywide retail ecosystem,” Arayqat said.

Economic impact and consumer engagement

The Super Sale is expected to generate stronger retail footfall and spending, while also contributing to broader economic activity across tourism, hospitality and entertainment sectors.

However, its impact is intentionally designed to extend beyond retail transactions.

“Because 3DSS is taking place during Eid in Dubai, the campaign can benefit several sectors at once,” Arayqat said. “A family may visit a mall for the sale, dine out as part of Dubai Restaurant Week, attend an Eid performance, explore Dubai Esports and Games Festival, or book a staycation during the long weekend.”

A major consumer incentive is the “Win Your Home in Dubai” draw, where shoppers spending Dhs500 at participating outlets earn entry to win one of 12 residential units supplied by Binghatti Developers, with additional entries unlocked for every Dhs500 spent.

The rise of Dubai’s “total value economy”

At the heart of the Super Sale’s evolution is a clear shift in consumer behaviour. Price remains important, but it is no longer the sole driver of purchasing decisions.

“Mega-discount events are highly significant because they create urgency. When shoppers know that discounts of up to 90 per cent are only available for a few days, it encourages faster decision-making,” Arayqat said.

However, Dubai’s retail model is increasingly defined by what industry stakeholders describe as “layered value”, where cash back, loyalty points, airline miles, prize draws and experiences combine within a single shopping journey.

“But Dubai’s retail model has moved beyond discounting alone. What makes 3DSS powerful is the layered value,” he said. “That changes consumer behaviour. The decision is no longer based only on price. It becomes about total value.”

This shift reflects a broader transformation in Dubai’s retail ecosystem, where shopping is increasingly embedded within lifestyle, tourism and entertainment experiences rather than treated as a standalone activity.

In the UAE, payments have always moved quickly, and what was once a back-office function is now shaping how companies maintain operational resilience. This is especially true in a period where external pressures are testing businesses across the region, making the systems that underpin revenue harder to ignore.

When consumer confidence shifts and spending patterns change, the companies that respond fastest are those with the clearest view of what’s happening at the transaction level. Payments data doesn’t just tell you how much you sold – it tells you where behaviour is changing, which channels are holding up and where friction is costing you revenue you can’t afford to lose.

That’s why payments are no longer the purely technical concern they were once perceived as. They are now shaping and driving leadership decisions – three of which will matter in particular this year.

1) Payment security is about customer experience as much as risk

The UAE is moving away from SMS and email OTPs for online payments towards in-app approvals and biometrics, with financial institutions leading the shift. That transition is happening against a backdrop of heightened cyber risk across the region. The stakes around transactional authentication are getting higher, and while merchants don’t control authentication, they are accountable for its impact on their businesses. Any transaction failure or delay could translate into checkout drop-off and lost revenue.

Today’s customers don’t see “security” as being separate from “experience”; they live it in terms of extra steps, confusion and authentication failures. In 2026, the leadership question is how to avoid that friction and prevent cumbersome authentication from translating into purchases abandoned at the last minute.

Leadership move: Treat payment authentication outcomes as a business KPI. Design for risk-based flows, measure where customers drop off after authentication, assign clear ownership when payments fail and invest in recovery, because even when security sits upstream, its impact is felt directly on conversion and customer trust.

2) The growing role of AI in customer buying decisions

AI usage will continue to gain traction as a prevailing market trend. Across the UAE, the technology is already influencing how customers discover, compare, choose what to buy and how much to spend. The Adyen 2025 Retail Report showed that 70 per cent of UAE consumers use AI tools when shopping – a 44 per cent increase on 2024 figures.

AI doesn’t “choose” brands in a traditional ranking sense or from paid ads. Instead, it reflects what customers already signal publicly: how clear a brand is, how consistent the experience feels and how reliably things work end to end.

Pricing transparency, delivery expectations, returns, support, reviews and payment all blend into a broader picture of trust that AI picks up. When that picture is fragmented, brands will struggle to be recommended, whether by people or by the tools helping them decide.

Leadership move: Audit the signals AI can see. That includes payments. The checkout is where trust is tested and where many AI-guided journeys ultimately succeed or fail. AI is taking on a more active role in buying decisions, and with the rise of agentic commerce in the UAE market, it will soon be acting more autonomously on behalf of customers. The brands that succeed will be those AI trusts enough to recommend and transact with.

3) Scaling across borders exposes weak setups

The UAE has built itself into one of the world’s most connected trading hubs, with its non-oil foreign trade growing 26.8 per cent YoY to exceed Dhs3.8tn in 2025.

That growth was built on world-class trade infrastructure and the confidence of businesses to scale across borders from this market. Today, with global trade conditions more volatile than they’ve been in years, that same infrastructure is being relied on differently – not just to enable growth, but to absorb disruption.

Cross-border commerce brings challenges that domestic transactions don’t, and in the current environment, that complexity is amplified. Payment preferences, authentication protocols, chargeback norms and regulatory requirements vary dramatically by country. Businesses can end up treating payments as a market-by-market problem, not an integrated one. The result of this can be a patchwork of different systems that are difficult to monitor, harder to control and eat into margins.

Leadership move: Treat payments as expansion and resilience infrastructure and not as a country-by-country add-on. The businesses that perform well in cross-border trade do so with operational preparedness – they have visibility, control and recovery paths that work consistently across markets, especially when conditions demand it.

So, where does this leave leadership this year?

Payments infrastructure is trust infrastructure and growth infrastructure rolled into one.

The real advantage for companies moving forward will come from building with intent and making three deliberate choices: maintain security without friction, build trust for AI-shaped journeys and scale across borders without rewiring. Because payments aren’t what happens at the end of the journey; they decide whether the journey converts at all.

Daumantas Grigaravicius is the head of Middle East at Adyen.

JLL has reported resilient performance across the UAE’s office and retail real estate sectors during the first quarter of 2026, with strong market fundamentals helping cushion the impact of broader regional uncertainties.

According to JLL’s latest Real Estate Market Dynamics report, both Dubai and Abu Dhabi continued to see sustained growth across prime office and retail segments, supported by tight supply conditions, occupier demand and adaptive landlord strategies.

The report highlighted a continued “flight to quality” trend within the office market, while the retail sector delivered mixed performance, with domestically focused retail formats remaining resilient as tourism-dependent categories faced softer conditions.

Taimur Khan, head of research, MEA, JLL, said: “With strong underlying economic fundamentals and agile occupier and landlord strategies, the UAE’s office and retail sectors demonstrated remarkable resilience and a strong capacity for strategic adaptation as they navigated measured activity in the first quarter. Despite short-term adjustments, demand remains robust, signalling the market’s inherent strength and positioning it for sustained growth as demand for prime spaces accelerates amid tightening supply.”

The UAE office sector continued to record strong rental growth, with both Dubai and Abu Dhabi posting double-digit annual increases amid constrained vacancy levels.

In Abu Dhabi, prime office rents rose 11.7 per cent year-on-year, while Grade A and Grade B office spaces increased by 5.1 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively.

Dubai’s office market also saw strong rental appreciation, particularly within Grade B assets, as occupiers increasingly turned to secondary office space due to limited availability in prime business districts. Grade B office rents climbed 23.4 per cent year-on-year, followed by Grade A at 19 per cent and Prime office space at 17.2 per cent.

Office inventory in Dubai reached 101.1 million square feet during the quarter, while Abu Dhabi’s total office stock expanded to 4.18 million square metres.

Vacancy levels remained exceptionally tight in Abu Dhabi, where citywide office vacancy stood at 1.4 per cent and prime vacancy fell to just 0.1 per cent.

In Dubai, vacancy rates edged slightly higher following new building completions, with citywide vacancy reaching 7.3 per cent and prime vacancy rising marginally to 0.7 per cent.

Despite strong fundamentals, heightened occupier caution impacted transaction activity during the quarter. Office rental contract registrations declined 6 per cent year-on-year in Abu Dhabi and 7.7 per cent in Dubai.

Monthly new office contracts also fell sharply, declining 19.7 per cent in Abu Dhabi and 20.6 per cent in Dubai during March compared to February 2026.

However, Dubai recorded an 11.2 per cent increase in office lease renewals on an annual basis, which JLL said reflected continued occupier confidence despite more cautious expansion activity.

The report noted that global supply chain pressures continue to impact development activity, although developers are responding through strategic sourcing initiatives, phased procurement planning and contractor negotiations.

JLL said transaction momentum is expected to strengthen in the coming quarters as demand for prime office space continues to outpace available supply.

Within the retail sector, Dubai’s existing retail inventory stood at 56 million square feet, while citywide vacancy tightened to 4.8 per cent, reflecting continued occupier demand.

Abu Dhabi’s retail market maintained a stable vacancy rate of 8.9 per cent during the quarter.

The report highlighted the role of government support initiatives, including the Dhs1bn stimulus package, alongside landlord flexibility on lease structures such as turnover-rent models and short-term rent relief in helping stabilise the sector.

Retail rental rates also remained resilient across both markets.

Super-regional malls in Dubai recorded annual rental growth of 12.4 per cent, while prime super-regional retail assets posted more moderate growth of 1.7 per cent.

In Abu Dhabi, prime super-regional malls maintained premium rental positioning at AED5,524 per square metre, supported by selective tenant demand.

Retail leasing activity in Dubai moderated during the quarter, with new rental contracts declining 9.9 per cent year-on-year.

Abu Dhabi, however, recorded stronger leasing activity, with total registrations rising 3.6 per cent year-on-year and new contracts increasing 16.7 per cent.

JLL noted that lease negotiations are increasingly focusing on more flexible commercial structures, including occupancy-cost-ratio (OCR) and turnover-rent (TOR) models.

The report added that retailers are increasingly exploring new revenue opportunities through pop-up destinations, experiential concepts and offerings targeting domestic consumers.

According to JLL, community and neighbourhood retail centres are expected to remain resilient, while experiential retail, home-grown brands and wellness-focused concepts are likely to see stronger demand as consumer preferences continue evolving.