A bungee jumping attraction offering leaps from a 50-metre platform will open at Yas Bay Waterfront on November 1, adding to Yas Island’s leisure attractions.

Warrior Group will operate Bungee at Yas Bay in partnership with Miral.

The attraction will overlook the waterfront and accommodate both first-time participants and experienced jumpers.

Jonathan Brown, chief portfolio officer at Miral, said the opening would broaden Yas Island’s entertainment offering and support its position as a leisure destination.

Warrior Group founder and CEO Troy Gillham said the partnership would add to Abu Dhabi’s leisure attractions and give residents and visitors another way to experience Yas Bay.

“We are delighted to partner with Miral to bring this new adventure experience to Yas Bay,” Gillham said.

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Bungee jumping ticket prices and discounts

Solo Leap packages start at Dhs299 on weekdays and Dhs350 on weekends.

Double Leap packages for two are available, and Squad Leap packages for four are also available.

Yas Annual Pass holders receive a 20 per cent discount on standard Solo Leap tickets.

Sessions will run every 15 minutes from 1pm to 10pm, Tuesday through Sunday.

The experience is open to guests aged 16 and above, with those under 18 required to be accompanied by a parent. Participants must weigh between 40kg and 105kg.

A professional crew will conduct a safety briefing and equipment checks before each jump. Participation is also subject to health and other eligibility requirements.

The attraction is scheduled to operate from November 1 to December 3, 2026, before returning for a second season from January 10 to February 28, 2027.

Located within Yas Bay Waterfront, the attraction offers visitors access to the destination’s restaurants and live entertainment alongside their jump.

Bookings are open through Platinumlist.

India grows a great deal of coffee, yet it is rarely the origin named on the bag. That is the gap Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters walked into in July, when it opened its first UAE café at BurJuman Mall.

The menu is built around single-estate coffees from Indian farms, alongside signature blends, seasonal offerings and a range of brewing methods. It is a quietly ambitious idea for a city with no shortage of flat whites.

The numbers suggest the timing is right. India is the world’s seventh-largest coffee producer, and Coffee Board data shows its exports crossed $2bn for the first time in 2025. The UAE already takes about 5 per cent of those shipments. What Dubai hasn’t had is a café brand telling the Indian origin story on its own terms.

“India has an incredible coffee-growing heritage, but Indian speciality coffee is still relatively underrepresented internationally as an origin and Dubai allows us to take that story to a very global audience,” says Shivam Shahi, Blue Tokai’s co-founder and COO.

Blue Tokai started in 2013 as a small roasting operation. It now runs more than 250 cafés and three roasteries in India and works directly with more than 80 coffee farms, according to the company’s launch announcement. It also has a café presence in Tokyo.

Scale taught Shahi something that spreadsheets don’t. “The biggest lesson from our expansion in India is that scaling a café business is not just about replicating stores; it is about replicating the experience while staying relevant to each market and neighbourhood,” he says.

The company learnt about site selection, team building and operating processes along the way. But processes only go so far. “Coffee is ultimately a people business, and the quality of the barista, the interaction with the customer and the consistency of what is in the cup matter enormously.”

So the discipline travels. The template doesn’t. “As we enter the UAE, we are taking that operating discipline with us, but we are not assuming that the India playbook can simply be transplanted here,” Shahi says. “The objective is to create a strong, scalable foundation rather than pursue store count for its own sake.”

Why Dubai first

Few cities drink coffee the way Dubai does. The UAE coffee market is worth more than Dhs12bn (about $3.2bn), and roughly 93 per cent of coffee spending happens out of home, in cafés and restaurants. That is one of the highest shares in the world, according to figures released ahead of World of Coffee Dubai 2026.

For Shahi, the city was the obvious first stop in the Gulf. “Dubai felt like a very natural first step for us because it is one of the most diverse and experience-driven café markets in the region,” he says. Customers here already know speciality coffee, and they are open to brands they haven’t tried.

There is a home crowd, too. More than 4.3 million Indians live in the UAE, and India’s ambassador has said more than half of them are in Dubai. Shahi is careful not to lean on that. “There is also a natural connection to India, given the size and diversity of the Indian community in the UAE. But we see the opportunity as much larger than serving only the Indian diaspora.”

The bigger prize is everyone else. “The city’s diversity and openness to new concepts make it an exciting gateway into the GCC.”

Blue Tokai is coming to the Gulf through Ambrosia, which holds the master franchise for the GCC. The brand joins a regional portfolio that already includes Biryani By Kilo and Furn Beaino. The partnership also covers Blue Tokai’s packaged coffee for hotels, restaurants and direct-to-consumer sales.

Shahi won’t put a figure on the investment. He describes the UAE as a long-term market and talks about the near term in terms of brand building, not openings. “Our immediate priority is to establish the brand through product, storytelling and category education, understand the customer and build the right operating model.”
There is a target, though. “We have plans to build a meaningful café network in the UAE, with more than ten cafés planned across the region over the coming year.”

Ten cafés is modest for a company with 250 at home, and that is deliberate. “We are deliberately taking a measured approach to expansion. For us, the quality of each location and the economics of the business are more important than simply moving quickly.”

The coffee does the talking
Dubai is not short of speciality coffee, local or imported. Shahi knows another roaster with good branding won’t move anyone. “What we are bringing is a very specific point of view on single origin speciality coffee from India.”

That point of view starts on the farm. Indian coffee grows mostly in the Western and Eastern Ghats, across Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Smallholders account for nearly 99 per cent of holdings and about 70 per cent of output, according to an Indian government statement. The Coffee Board expects a record crop of 403,000 tonnes in 2025-26.

Blue Tokai buys directly from estates and controls sourcing, roasting and brewing itself, which Shahi describes as “representing one of the handful of full stack coffee companies across the world.” Indian coffee will stay at the centre of the UAE menu. “Expanding internationally should strengthen those relationships rather than dilute them.”

The economics are harder here. “Logistics, duties, real estate and operating costs all have an impact on pricing,” Shahi says. The aim is to absorb those realities without cutting corners on the coffee or the sourcing model.

And he is clear that a flag on the menu won’t win regulars. “But we don’t expect customers to choose us simply because we are an Indian brand. The coffee has to be exceptional, the experience has to be warm and approachable, and the overall proposition has to earn the customer’s loyalty.”

Same soul, local menu
The coffee, the training and the emphasis on traceability won’t change. Almost everything around them can. Shahi lists elements of the food menu, the pricing architecture, store formats and the overall customer experience as open to adjustment for UAE habits and occasions.

He sums it up in one line. “The balance we are looking for is consistent brand philosophy, locally relevant execution.”

Dubai is also a test bed. Saudi Arabia alone has more than 5,100 branded cafés, close to half of all branded cafés in the Middle East, and drinks more than 36 million cups of coffee a day. Shahi sees the UAE as the place to learn the region’s consumers, real estate, talent and operating environment first. “If we build the right model here, Dubai can become a strong platform for expansion into the wider GCC.”

He won’t set a store count for that, either. For now, the test is simpler, and it happens one cup at a time at BurJuman. “We want customers to come back because they genuinely love the coffee and the brand, and then discover the story behind it.”

Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute has announced the postponement of the tenth edition of its flagship investment conference, originally scheduled to take place in Riyadh from October 26 to 29, 2026.

The event, FII10, themed “The Power of Legacy”, will now be held in 2027, with organisers expected to announce revised dates soon.

In a statement, HRH Princess Dr. Maha Bint Mishari Al Saud, CEO of the FII Institute, said the decision was taken to ensure the landmark edition meets the expectations of its international community of investors, business leaders and policymakers.

“Because this is our landmark tenth edition, we want to ensure it delivers the full scale, extraordinary quality, and unforgettable impact that our community has come to expect and truly deserves,” she said.

“A decade of partnership and shared vision deserves nothing less than our absolute best.”

The institute confirmed that all existing registrations and partnerships will remain valid despite the postponement.

Organisers will contact registered delegates, partners and other stakeholders directly over the coming days to provide further assistance and address queries regarding the revised arrangements.

“We are profoundly grateful to our community for your continued trust, patience, and friendship. We cannot wait to welcome you home to Riyadh in 2027 for a truly special and memorable FII10,” Princess Maha added.

The annual FII conference, also known as ‘Davos in the Desert’, has emerged as a major platform for international investment discussions, bringing together sovereign wealth funds, global financial institutions, corporate executives and government officials to explore investment opportunities and economic transformation.

The conference is closely associated with Saudi Arabia’s efforts to attract international capital, diversify its economy and strengthen its position as a global investment destination under Vision 2030.

The postponement comes amid escalating security concerns in Saudi Arabia following a series of missile and drone attacks by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group.

Recent attacks, including a deadly strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, have disrupted air travel and raised concerns among international investors and business executives planning to visit the kingdom.

The Gulf Business Investment Summit 2026 will take place on October 30 at the Grand Plaza Mövenpick Media City in Dubai, bringing together investment professionals, financial experts and industry leaders to examine the trends shaping global capital allocation.

Held under the theme ‘Where Capital Goes Next’, the summit will explore how investors are navigating geopolitical uncertainty, changing interest-rate dynamics, technological disruption and the emergence of new investment opportunities.

The half-day event will feature a series of panel discussions examining global capital flows, artificial intelligence (AI), digital infrastructure, private markets and asset tokenisation.

Investment leaders to share insights

The summit will feature a lineup of confirmed speakers, including Wissam Breidy, Founder and CEO of BRDG House; Bader Al Sarraf, Research Analyst and Associate Director, Global Research at Standard Chartered; and Varun Kapur, Director at KAPITAL by KLEBER GROUP.

Other confirmed speakers include Alister Wellesley, CEO of EA MENA; Sapan Agarwal, Global Senior Vice President, Commercial Strategy & Key Accounts at Frost & Sullivan; Salmaan Khawaja, Partner and Head of Financial Advisory at Grant Thornton UAE; and Raven Groom-Baker, Managing Director at Aquanow, and many more.

AI, private markets and tokenisation in focus

The summit will open with a keynote titled ‘Where Capital Goes Next’, setting the stage for discussions on the economic, geopolitical and technological forces influencing investment decisions.

The first panel, ‘The Great Capital Reset’, will explore how investors are repositioning portfolios amid shifting global markets, while ‘The Next Trillion-Dollar Opportunities’ will examine investment prospects across the AI ecosystem, including semiconductors, robotics, cybersecurity and enterprise applications.

Another session will focus on the infrastructure underpinning the AI economy, highlighting opportunities in data centres, energy, connectivity and digital infrastructure.

The programme will also examine the growing importance of private equity, private credit and alternative investments, alongside the potential for tokenisation to transform asset ownership, trading and accessibility.

The $1bn investment debate

A key highlight will be the closing session, ‘The $1bn Debate: If You Had $1bn to Invest Today…’, which will challenge five investment figures to allocate hypothetical $1bn portfolios across equities, credit, private markets, infrastructure, real estate, commodities, digital assets and cash.

Participants will defend their investment strategies and debate which asset classes could deliver the strongest returns over the next decade.

The Gulf Business Investment Summit 2026 will begin with registration and networking at 8am, followed by the main programme from 8.30am to 11.30am.

Find out more: https://bit.ly/4zlRek3

Event details: October 30, 2026 | Grand Plaza Mövenpick Media City, Dubai | 8am–11.30am.

A successful mobile banking login does not necessarily mean a customer’s session remains secure, cybersecurity company protectt.ai. warned on Monday, urging financial institutions to monitor risks continuously before money or sensitive data moves.

The mobile application security, fraud prevention and digital trust company said fraudsters were increasingly working around authentication by manipulating customers or compromising their devices after access had been granted.

A customer could use a bank’s genuine application on a registered phone and log in with valid credentials while a remote-access tool, screen-sharing application, overlay or another form of compromise allowed someone else to observe, influence or control activity during the session, it said.

The advisory comes as UAE financial institutions expand mobile-first services, instant payments and connected financial experiences. Protectt.ai said banks needed to reassess trust across the application, device and transaction throughout each session.

Fraud risk beyond the login screen

Research by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, conducted with Trend Micro and published on January 27, surveyed 1,000 UAE residents. One in three respondents reported losing money to scams in the preceding year, across digital and communication channels. The finding concerns scams broadly, rather than mobile banking fraud alone.

Separately, Gartner’s public abstract for its August 3 research, How to Enhance Application Security by Deploying Application Detection and Response, argued that application security testing and frontline controls alone were insufficient. It highlighted the need to protect applications while they are running.

“Authentication confirms that a recognised customer has entered the application. It cannot, on its own, confirm that the device and the session remain safe throughout the transaction. Banks need visibility into what is happening while the application is running so they can recognise risky conditions and intervene before fraud is completed,” said Manish Mimani, founder and CEO of Protectt.ai.

The company identified potential warning signals including remote-control or screen-sharing tools operating during banking sessions, rooted or jailbroken devices, screen overlays, application cloning, runtime hooking and attempts to tamper with application behaviour.

Such conditions can emerge or change after authentication, making a single security decision at login less reliable as a session continues, it said.

When a transfer needs another check

Protectt.ai recommended treating device integrity as part of transaction risk.

A high-value transfer from a device showing signs of remote control, tampering, or abnormal execution should carry a different risk profile than the same transfer on a healthy device, it said.

Banks should also connect security signals detected within applications to their fraud and transaction-monitoring systems.

Assessing those technical indicators alongside behavioural and transactional anomalies could help institutions decide whether to allow an action, request further verification, pause a transaction or suspend a session.

“Mobile applications are now the primary financial front door for many customers in the UAE. The challenge is to protect that experience without adding unnecessary friction. A risk-based response allows banks to intervene proportionately when the application or device shows signs of compromise while keeping routine journeys smooth for genuine customers,” said Pushkar Singh, country head, Middle East and Africa at Protectt.ai.

The company said visibility into applications while they are running complemented existing investment in secure development, identity, network defence, application programming interfaces and transaction monitoring.

Detecting manipulation or unsafe device conditions during use could allow a bank to intervene while a session remained active, rather than investigating only after a fraudulent payment had been completed.

Protectt.ai, which operates across India, the Middle East and North Africa, Southeast Asia and the US, said it covered more than 350 sensitive mobile applications and over one billion unique devices, had safeguarded more than 100 billion sessions and had prevented over eight billion threats.