Kuwait’s Ali Alghanim plans rare family-owned local listing

The company will sell a 45 per cent stake in the listing

Bitcoin jumps above $41,000, challenging past week’s tight range

Bitcoin had spent the past few days mired in the tightest trading range since October 2020

Wizz Financial to introduce live digital payment platform in the UAE

Wizz Financial will partner with NPCI International Payments (NIPL), the international arm of National Payments Corporation of India

Bahrain’s Central Bank issues operating licence to Binance

Bahrain is the first GCC country to issue regulatory approvals to the blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider

Gold

Gold holds decline as bond yields surge before Fed meeting

Bullion has eased after rallying to within $5 of a record last week

Saudi pharma retail chain Al-Dawaa surges in trading debut

The shares surged as much as 18 per cent to SAR86.1

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority

Dubai Electricity & Water Authority to sell 6.5% stake in IPO

The offer price range will be announced on March 24 with an expected trading debut on April 13

Charting the growth of the regional fintech ecosystem

Saxo Bank MENA’s CEO Damian Hitchen talks about the region’s fintech space and the challenges faced by the financial sector

Al Fardan and Thunes partner to enable seamless cross-border payments

Al Fardan’s customers can now send money not just to bank accounts, but also to mobile wallets and cash pickup points in 87 countries

Dubai’s Tecom courts investors after lining up banks for IPO

A listing could come as soon as the middle of this year

First Abu Dhabi Bank to open representative office in Iraq

The UAE is one of Iraq’s most important trading partners, with the value of exported goods totalling over $13.11bn in 2020

World’s oldest sovereign wealth fund makes London hiring push

The Kuwait Investment Office recruited Arne Hassel as chief investment officer in November

UAE’s First Abu Dhabi Bank and ADCB deny report of potential merger

The banks issued separate filings to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) denying the report

Three ways Fintech is transforming everyday life

UAE’s Aafaq Islamic Finance and Arab Financial Services to back fintech startups

The partnership is part of Bahrain-based AFS’s Regional Partner Program that supports new and existing fintechs to launch operations across the region

Saudi exchange to allow single-stock futures from next quarter

The Tadawul introduced index futures in August 2020

How to best fund a sustainable future

The main challenge: capital markets do not yet fully understand what the rule book for sustainable investing looks like

Buy-now-pay-later provider tabby secures $54m in funding

The investment will support tabby’s international expansion plans

For straight answers, you’re better off asking a female CFO

Women reached 15 per cent of the CFO positions in 2021 among S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies

The way forward for cryptocurrencies

The UAE has been one of the most welcoming regions to establish cryptocurrency trading agencies and other cryptocurrency verticals

How much crypto should be in your investment portfolio?

Investors may have more visibility around cryptocurrencies in the years ahead, notes Bloomberg Opinion columnist Nir Kaissar

gold

UAE’s DGCX trades total value of $13.68bn contracts in February 2022

Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange’s Gold Futures Contract recorded a year-on-year average daily volume growth of 734 per cent

Nasdaq Dubai

Jordan’s Capital Bank lists $100m bond on Nasdaq Dubai

The bond is the first issuance of its kind for a Jordanian bank on the exchange

AIX Investment Group strengthens its footprint across the region

The investment company will be present at Dubai International Boat Show 2022, to showcase their products and services to potential investors

The growth of the fintech sector in the Middle East

Moving towards more homogenised regional frameworks can catalyse a wave of new fintechs to scale globally, opines Oliver Obitayo, CEO of IDnow Middle East 

UAE’s Gulf Capital accelerates investment pace in Egypt and Africa

Gulf Capital has already invested over $300m in Egypt in sectors such as technology, infrastructure, manufacturing, petrochemicals and healthcare

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs

UAE Central Bank approves creation of 5,000 jobs for Emiratis by 2026

The Emiratisation plan will apply to managerial positions across the country’s banking and insurance sectors

NAsdaq New York

Dubai’s Shuaa Capital lists $100m SPAC on Nasdaq New York

It has priced its initial public offering of 10,000,000 units of Shuaa Partners Acquisition Corp I at $10 per unit

Here’s how UAE banks can protect real-time payments from fraud

Jeremy Wilmot, chief product officer at ACI Worldwide tells Gulf Business how the company is preparing to help UAE banks connect to the nation’s central real-time payments infrastructure

Bitcoin tops $44,000 in tentative comeback as portfolio hedge

Adam Farthing, chief risk officer for Japan at crypto trading firm B2C2, said Bitcoin could “de-link from risk”

Brookfield to buy 60% of First Abu Dhabi Bank’s payment arm

The bank’s payments business was valued at $1.15bn