Money moves quietly until it doesn’t. When payments slow, fail, or fracture, economies feel it instantly. In a region like the Middle East and Africa, where populations are young, commerce is increasingly digital, and borders still shape how money flows, the infrastructure behind those transactions matters more than most people realise.

That critical infrastructure is what Network International provides and operates. Headquartered in the UAE, the company processes payments across 56 markets, is fully compliant and authorised, and has local teams on the ground, with a footprint that extends into 49 countries across Africa.

Its systems power everyday commerce, bank settlements, government programmes, and cross-border trade, largely unseen but critical to how money circulates.

In February last year, Murat Cagri Suzer stepped into the role of group CEO at a moment when scale alone was no longer enough. The company was navigating a merger, rising regulatory expectations, rapid shifts in consumer behaviour, and a technology landscape being reshaped by AI, real-time data, and new forms of money. The question facing the business was no longer how big it was, but what it could become.

Suzer arrived with more than two decades of experience across payments, fintech, and digital banking. Before joining Network International, he held senior leadership roles at BBVA in both the US and Turkey, encompassing payments, cryptocurrency, consumer and digital banking, as well as corporate and investment banking. He was also part of BBVA’s global strategy and planning team. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company, advising clients across financial services, telecoms, and consumer goods, after starting out at Danone.

An engineer by training with an MBA from INSEAD, Suzer has also served on several industry and advisory boards across the global payments ecosystem. But the challenge ahead was not theoretical. It was operational. How do you run a payments platform that spans numerous markets, currencies, regulators, and risk environments, while turning transactions into insight and infrastructure into advantage?

In this conversation with Gulf Business editor Neesha Salian, Suzer breaks down the move from traditional processing to an insights-led future and explains why the Middle East and Africa remain the ultimate testing ground for fintech.

You stepped into the CEO role early last year. From your seat, how would you describe the last few months and the strategy taking shape?

What attracted me to Network International is that it’s a truly unique payments platform. We operate across 56 markets in the Middle East and Africa, with local teams and central bank licences in those markets. No other payment company in the region can say that.

But the real opportunity is what you can build on top of that platform. Payments provide insight into economic activity in real time. Used responsibly and confidentially, that data can help businesses, governments, and entire ecosystems operate better.

Take something simple like traffic flow. If we see transaction volumes spike in one part of a city, that usually means more people, more activity. That insight can help optimise taxi routes, logistics, or staffing. For small businesses, the value is even more direct.

How so?

Let’s say you’re a restaurant heading into Ramadan. We can show you how your sales performed last Ramadan, how you compare to similar restaurants nearby, where your average transaction sits, and whether repeat customers are lower than peers. That allows you to make very practical decisions, pricing, promotions, and loyalty campaigns, based on facts rather than guesswork.

This is why we see ourselves not just as a payments company, but as an insights-led fintech platform. That shift to a global scale fintech company is core to our long-term strategy.

Tell us about how the UAE has proven to be fertile ground for Network International’s ambitions.

The UAE’s emerging digital economy, coupled with a highly supportive regulatory environment and a proactive government vision, presented a unique opportunity to build essential digital payment infrastructure, offer card processing, and drive e-commerce, directly supporting the nation’s goal for a cashless society.

Network International was an early enabler of digital and e-commerce payments in the region, allowing us to leverage data, technology, and innovation to reimagine payments and fintech.

This supportive ecosystem has enabled Network International to take leading roles in emerging payment technologies.

Scale is key to executing your vision for leadership in this area. Is that what’s driving recent mergers and partnerships?

Exactly. To build a global-scale fintech company, you need scale. That’s the logic behind the merger of Network International and Magnati, which we completed in October last year and the partnerships we’re forming across the region.

We also agreed to acquire RAKBANK’s merchant acquiring business in the UAE, bringing approximately 5,000 merchants into our ecosystem in a transaction expected to close in early this year, subject to regulatory approvals. Through this agreement, we look forward to extending our advanced payments technology and data capabilities to RAKBANK’s merchant base, supporting the growth ambitions of SMEs and large corporates alike. We also see strong potential in Ras Al Khaimah, where economic diversification and business-friendly reforms are creating real momentum.

Most recently, the company became the first payments platform in the UAE to enable regulated stablecoin acceptance through a partnership with Al Maryah Community Bank (MBank).

All of this reflects our ambition to be a long-term partner in the country’s development and a catalyst for innovation across the wider UAE and MEA region.

Africa is a major part of that story. What’s your strategy there?

Africa is one of the fastest-growing payments markets in the world. Infrastructure is still catching up, but mobile wallets and digital payments are growing rapidly. There’s also strong demand for faster, cheaper payment rails.

We’re already present in 49 African countries, which makes us the most geographically penetrated fintech platform on the continent. Our role is to work closely with regulators, governments, banks, and enterprises to build the right infrastructure. Africa is not a side market for us. It’s strategic, and it’s growing fast.

Innovation is a big theme for Network International. Where is your focus today?

There are two layers. The first is core payments innovation. Payment’s success still comes down to two fundamentals, security and authorisation rates. If your authorisation rate drops by 1 per cent, you lose 1 per cent of revenue. That’s real money.

Because we learn across 56 markets, we continuously improve authorisation performance. When we solve a problem in one country, everyone benefits. That learning loop is a major competitive advantage that enables us to offer the highest authorisation rates.

The second layer is acceptance. People travel, shop, and pay differently. Our job is to make sure whatever payment method they prefer works seamlessly. Our POS systems accept global card schemes, local schemes, wallets, and alternative payment methods.

And beyond traditional payments?

We’ve recently launched a new app for small businesses, which is rolling out to merchants this year. It gives them real-time visibility into transactions, refunds, chargebacks, and settlements, along with access to early settlement if they need liquidity.

It also connects them to SME lending through multiple banks, using transaction data to improve approval odds and pricing.

We’re also working with enterprise partners on agentic commerce. In simple terms, bots pay bots on behalf of humans. If consumers delegate routine purchases to AI agents, merchants need to be ready for that. We’re building the infrastructure in between so our merchants aren’t caught off guard.

On top of that, we’ve been appointed by the UAE Central Bank to champion CBDC acceptance and have signed to support regulated stablecoins, including AE Coin. Our role is to enable choice. If it’s regulated, merchants should be able to accept it.

What are the biggest challenges you’re discussing internally?

Speed. What we’re building requires dozens of agile teams delivering in parallel. Speed of execution determines relevance for customers and for economies trying to digitise.

That also means hiring, training, and aligning talent across many markets. Building the team is as critical as building the technology.

There’s a lot of debate around AI and jobs. How do you see it?

AI is already improving productivity across fraud, reconciliation, sales, and operations. But we’re not at a point where it’s eliminating jobs at scale. In fact, it’s creating new roles.

AI systems can develop bias over time. That means you need to build teams to train AI on culture, diversity, and fairness. Every new technology creates new opportunities. The people who adapt and reskill will benefit.

Looking ahead, what trends will define payments in 2026 and beyond?

First, seamlessness. Payments are becoming frictionless and embedded, but that creates a need for transparency, so consumers understand where their data is stored.

Second, borderless payments. Domestic payments are fast and cheap. Cross-border payments are still not. That gap will close, whether through new rails, blockchain-based solutions, or regulatory alignment.

And third, AI. Not as a buzzword, but as an operational engine across the entire payments stack.

Finally, how would you describe your leadership style?

Two things matter to me. Delivering on what we say, because credibility builds trust. And maintaining positivity. This is a demanding business, but culture matters. When people feel positive and aligned, execution follows.

BEEAH and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, Masdar, have signed a joint development agreement to identify and develop utility-scale solar power projects in Sharjah, the companies said on Tuesday.

The agreement sets out a framework for the assessment, selection and development of photovoltaic solar projects, covering activities from feasibility studies and grid impact assessments to construction, operation and maintenance.

The deal was signed at the World Future Energy Summit 2026, held as part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, by Khaled Al Huraimel, group CEO and vice chairman of BEEAH, and Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar.

Under the agreement, the two companies will collaborate on end-to-end project development, including solar resource assessments and site studies.

The framework also allows for the exploration of additional clean energy options, including hybrid battery energy storage systems aimed at improving grid resilience.

“Sharjah’s rising energy requirements are driving the deployment of more diversified, resilient renewables infrastructure across the emirate,” Al Huraimel said. He added that the agreement builds on BEEAH’s experience in delivering clean electricity through its commercial-scale Sharjah Waste to Energy facility and strengthens a partnership that has already delivered a major energy project in the UAE.

Masdar CEO Al Ramahi said the agreement builds on a long-standing relationship between the two organisations, including the joint development of the Middle East’s first commercial-scale waste-to-energy plant. “Sharjah has strong potential for solar energy development, and its visionary leadership is driving the deployment of high-quality, commercially viable projects to accelerate the emirate’s energy transformation,” he said.

Agreement expands Masdar-BEEAH collaboration

The latest agreement builds upon earlier collaborations between BEEAH and Masdar, most notably the establishment of the Emirates Waste to Energy Company joint venture in 2017, which aimed to develop the region’s first utility-scale waste-to-energy project.

BEEAH stated that the solar development plan aligns with its commitment to achieve Net Zero by 2040. Beyond waste-to-energy, the company is assessing opportunities to convert closed landfills into solar farms and to generate power from landfill gas.

Its headquarters in Sharjah includes an on-site solar plant and holds LEED Platinum certification.

The agreement also aligns with national clean energy goals. The UAE aims to triple its renewable energy capacity by 2030 as part of the Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative.

Masdar, jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC and Mubadala, said it currently has a renewable energy portfolio of more than 65 gigawatts across six continents and is targeting a capacity of 100 gigawatts by 2030.

Read: BEEAH’s Khaled Al Huraimel on its first major real estate project, Khalid Bin Sultan City

Jadwa Investment has launched its flagship Jadwa GCC Diversified Private Credit Fund, targeting up to SAR750m ($200m), marking a significant expansion of the firm’s private credit platform in the region. The fund has completed its first close at more than SAR300m ($80m) and has already deployed capital into its initial two investments through partnerships with regional fintech platforms Lendo and JeelPay. A further two investments are expected to close in the first half of 2026.

Following the launch of several deal-specific private credit strategies, the Jadwa GCC Diversified Private Credit Fund represents the firm’s first blind-pool regional private credit vehicle. It is designed to provide institutional and private wealth investors with access to high-quality opportunities across the GCC’s rapidly expanding private credit market.

Commenting on the launch, Tariq Al-Sudairy, managing director and CEO of Jadwa Investment, said: “Private credit is increasingly becoming a strategic allocation for sophisticated investors globally. This fund reflects Jadwa’s ability to originate and execute attractive private credit opportunities, and our conviction in the asset class in light of Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC’s economic momentum and growing demand for credit.”

Fidaa Haddad, managing director and head of private credit at Jadwa Investment, added: “Our private credit platform is designed to support high-quality companies across multiple transactions, offering investors access the growing private credit market in Saudi Arabia and across the GCC. We are excited to announce our first investments and look forward to delivering strong and consistent outcomes for our investors.”

The launch of the fund highlights Jadwa Investment’s focus on expanding its private capital capabilities and delivering innovative investment solutions for institutional and private wealth clients, supported by its strong regional presence, origination expertise, and established track record in private markets.

Read: Saudi Arabia secures $13bn syndicated loan to fund utilities projects

As enterprises evolve in an age where intelligence has become ambient, design is emerging as the new strategic language of transformation, bridging human creativity, technological precision, and purposeful innovation.

What was once a conceptual frontier has now become the foundation of enterprise reinvention, where AI, design, and engineering converge to unlock new dimensions of value. This fusion unites human creativity with computational precision, design intuition with engineering discipline, and imagination with intelligence.

Together, they are reshaping how enterprises create value, deliver experiences, and define purpose, building organisations that are inherently adaptive, deeply responsive, and intelligent by design.

As global leaders convene at the World Economic Forum to shape the future of technology and growth, we explore how responsible, human-centred AI can be operationalised at enterprise scale.

In an economy increasingly orchestrated by intelligent systems, design carries a renewed strategic mandate: to engineer coherence between human foresight, technological capability, and business ambition. No longer confined to aesthetics or usability, design now defines the logic of how intelligence is embedded, applied, and evolved across the enterprise.

In this construct, it becomes the connective tissue of transformation, where data informs judgment, engineering amplifies ideas, and human experience anchors purpose. Design ensures that intelligence flows seamlessly across functions rather than existing in silos, enabling organisations to be not just efficient but also adaptive, anticipatory, and self-evolving.

From experience design to intelligent design

For much of the past decade, enterprises viewed experience design as their differentiator, crafting seamless interfaces, curated journeys, and personalised touchpoints. But as ecosystems converge and industries digitise, experience alone is no longer enough.

The new frontier is intelligent design, where experience is informed by data, refined through learning, and delivered through systems that anticipate rather than merely respond.

In this paradigm, AI becomes the design partner, not just an analytical engine. It interprets intent, context, and emotion at scale, transforming static interfaces into adaptive ecosystems. Yet intelligence without design risks fragmentation and opacity. The true power lies in integration, where design provides the human framework and AI the computational insight. Together, they enable enterprises that can sense, reason, and act in real time, with purpose, precision, and empathy.

This convergence marks a structural evolution in how organisations are built. The most progressive enterprises no longer separate technology, process, and experience; they design intelligence as a living system that connects operations to outcomes, customers to communities, and data to decision-making.

Intelligent design is therefore not about automation; it is about alignment. It ensures that intelligence augments, rather than replaces, human judgment, anchoring trust as the foundation of every interaction.

Engineering the future of business value

Engineering intelligence is not about layering algorithms onto legacy systems; it’s about reimagining enterprise architecture for continuous learning and adaptation. It demands redesigned processes, dynamic decision flows, and systems built to evolve.

The convergence of design, AI, and engineering provides the blueprint, transforming fragmented digital initiatives into coherent, self-optimising ecosystems.

This is design-led engineering — a philosophy that unites creativity with computation to deliver intelligence at scale. By embedding data, cloud, and cognitive technologies within a design framework, enterprises can create digital twins of decision-making, virtual models that simulate outcomes, predict impact, and guide real-world execution.

As AI evolves, the digital twins are expanding into what researchers call ‘world models,’ systems that interpret context, environment, and human behaviour to simulate how designed experiences will perform in real life. No enterprise will hand off its ideas to AI and assume they will simply work; design must be validated before it is deployed.

Real-world testing is costly and constrained, which is why world models offer a powerful alternative: they allow teams to prototype, stress-test, and refine experiences in highly realistic simulated environments. This ensures that what is engineered is intelligent in theory and also reliable, safe, and effective in practice.

This is the future of engineering: systems that are dynamic, self-improving, and guided by human intent. When design principles shape engineering logic, enterprises move beyond automation to intelligent orchestration, where insight flows seamlessly from strategy to execution, making the organisation not just technologically capable but structurally adaptive.

Human by design, intelligent by engineering

As generative AI expands the boundaries of creative potential, a critical question arises: how do we preserve the human essence of innovation? The answer lies in intentional design, where technology amplifies imagination, accelerates insight, and augments human capability without eroding ethics or empathy.

In this paradigm, design becomes the governance layer of intelligence, embedding transparency, explainability, and accountability into systems that increasingly make autonomous decisions. The enterprises that will define the next decade are those that balance precision with purpose, where engineering builds capability, and design safeguards conscience.

This alignment between human judgment and machine intelligence represents the next great dialogue of our time, demanding that we rethink how creativity, accountability, and trust are designed into the very fabric of intelligent systems.

The future: Designing the intelligent enterprise

The intelligent enterprise of tomorrow will not be defined by size, scale, or sector, but by its ability to sense, learn, and evolve. Powered by human foresight and intelligent systems, every decision will be informed by data and every experience shaped by empathy.

Leaders must view AI not as a layer, but as a strategic design principle, an architecture that aligns innovation with intent. When design thinking meets systems thinking, enterprises move beyond transformation to reinvention.

In this interdependent world, the imperative is clear: build organisations that grow responsibly, innovate inclusively, and act intelligently.

In the age of AI, the most consequential design is not for a product or platform; it is the design of the intelligent enterprise itself.

Atul Soneja is the COO at Tech Mahindra.

Qatar said on Wednesday precautionary measures had been taken at the US-run Al Udeid Air Base, including the departure of some personnel, because of rising regional tensions, according to its International Media Office.

The office said the steps were part of broader efforts to safeguard the security of citizens and residents and to protect critical infrastructure and military facilities, adding that any further developments would be announced through official channels.

Oil prices rise

Meanwhile, oil prices rose on Wednesday for a fifth straight session on fears of Iranian supply disruptions due to a potential US attack on Iran.

Brent futures were up 48 cents, or 0.73 per cent, at $65.95 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 was up 35 cents, or 0.57 per cent, at $61.50 a barrel.

“We are in a period of geopolitical instability and potential supply disruption,” said Jorge Montepeque, managing director at Onyx Capital Group.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged Iranians to keep protesting and said help was on the way, without specifying what that meant.

“Protests in Iran risk tightening global oil balances through near-term supply losses, but mainly through rising geopolitical risk premium,” Citi analysts said in a note.

The analysts noted, however, that the protests had not spread to the main Iranian oil-producing areas, which had limited the effect on actual supply.