This is my favourite photo of my trip to Saudi Arabia. I know from closely browsing the Visit Saudi website that there are some much better-looking vistas across the Kingdom (like, for example Al Hada Road). But that hasn’t been my focus for this trip. I was aiming to see just how things have been […]
Digital Saudi: My super contactless journey in Riyadh
So following on from my fantastic contactless Dubai experiment, I flew to Saudi Arabia yesterday. I would normally use a local taxi from the airport – but this time I decided to check out Careem (Uber) and used that to summon a Lexus 350 with a local driver. “Kif Halik?” (How are you?) He asked […]
Another interesting job: Head of Crowdfunding, Saudi Arabia
Now then I caught this one the other day and made a note to write about it – the job title is Head of Crowdfunding. That’s it. There’s a small write-up from the recruiter, Huxley, aaaaand that’s about all the information! Here’s what’s published on the LinkedIn add: On behalf of our client, we are […]
Interesting Job: VP – FinTech Engagement & Emerging Technologies
I saw this one on LinkedIn earlier (“VP – FinTech Engagement & Emerging Technologies”) and I thought it would be worth writing about in case anyone reading might be interested. The tech media has long scoured job boards to get an idea on what areas the likes of Apple, Google and others might be focusing […]
Contactless Dubai: You can leave your cards at home!
DIFC, Baby First, some context. Back in September last year, I flew into Copenhagen for one of the world’s finest FinTech events: Nordic FinTech Week. I headed from the airport to the hotel and then changed out of my ’40 degree heat Muscat clothes’ and then raced off to Copenhagen FinTech Hub for their networking […]
My FinTech Tour of the GCC
I wrote a post recently on my LinkedIn profile introducing my upcoming FinTech Tour of the GCC. Here’s a brief screenshot: I thought I’d post here too just to keep those who follow updated. The brief synopsis of my update was that, having finished my role as Chief Transformation Officer at Sohar International in Oman, […]
An overview of: Tamara (Buy Now, Pay Later)
Thanks to my colleague Vippin who’s contributed this summary profile overview of the Buy Now, Pay Later leader, Tamara. Over to Vippin: Tamara’s homepage Tamara is of one of the Buy Now, Pay Later leaders here in the Middle East. The company has over 3 million customers with more than 4000 partner merchants, which include […]
Saudi Arabia to go live with Open Banking in Q1 2023
I saw today via lots of social media posts that SAMA, the Saudi Arabian Central Bank has announced more details on it’s open banking framework – together with an intention for services to go live during the first quarter of 2023. This is an exciting move for one of the GCC’s biggest markets. You can […]
Ruba: Helping Kuwaiti parents spread the cost of school fees
I liked this note from wamda about the pre-seed round of new Kuwaiti FinTech, Ruba: Fintech startup Ruba, a platform that aims to make education accessible to all, announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount in an oversubscribed pre-Seed funding round. Ruba addresses a pain point in relation to school fees. Currently, parents pay […]
My favourite FinTech: Nutmeg
At the moment I’m not enjoying looking at any investment products because you know the answer is ‘negative’. Such is the fickle reality of markets, especially in these turbulent times. That being said, I thought I’d kick-off my ‘Favourite FinTech’ feature by saying ‘thank you’ to Nutmeg for getting me started personally with robo-advised-investments, properly. […]