UAE’s VARA Issues 14 New Crypto Licences as Dubai Cements Role as Global Virtual Asset Hub
The UAE's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) has issued 14 new virtual asset service provider (VASP) licences in Q1 2026, bringing the total number...
Expert View: Islamic Finance in the GCC, Scale, Innovation and Global Relevance
Expert Analysis, Gulf Times NowIslamic finance, the provision of financial services in accordance with Sharia principles that prohibit interest (riba), excessive uncertainty (gharar), and...
AI in GCC Banking: How Gulf Banks Are Deploying Artificial Intelligence
Gulf financial institutions have emerged as among the most aggressive adopters of artificial intelligence in the banking sector globally, deploying AI across customer service,...
Jad Antoun: Fixing the Most Painful Transaction in the UAE, One Mortgage at a Time
Buying a home in Dubai is, by any objective measure, one of the most administratively intensive consumer experiences in a city famous for doing...
Bahrain FinTech Bay: The Gulf’s Leading Financial Technology Hub
Bahrain has carved out a distinctive position in the GCC financial ecosystem by focusing on financial technology, becoming one of the most fintech-friendly regulatory...
How the UAE Became a Global Leader in Cryptocurrency Regulation
When the UAE established the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in March 2022, it became the world's first jurisdiction to create a dedicated regulator...
Abdulmajeed Alsukhan: How a Saudi Central Bank Alumnus Built the Kingdom’s First Fintech Unicorn
There is a particular irony in the fact that Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, the man who disrupted Saudi Arabia's financial sector with a new generation of...
DeFi and Web3 in the GCC: How Decentralised Finance is Taking Root in the Gulf
While most discussions of cryptocurrency in the GCC focus on centralised exchanges and Bitcoin investment, a quieter but potentially more consequential development is underway:...
UAE Exchange Houses Guide: Al Ansari, UAE Exchange and Money Transfer in the Emirates
The UAE operates one of the world's most competitive and accessible foreign exchange and money transfer markets, with hundreds of licensed exchange houses serving...
Hosam Arab: The Man Who Built the Middle East’s Most Valuable Fintech from a Dubai Apartment
In 2019, Hosam Arab was sitting in a modest Dubai apartment with a whiteboard, a co-founder, and a single conviction: that the GCC's hundreds...
UAE Dirham Peg: How Currency Stability Powers the Emirates as an Investment Hub
The United Arab Emirates dirham has been pegged to the US dollar at a fixed rate of 3.6725 AED per USD since November 1997,...
Expert View: How AI Will Transform Gulf Banking Over the Next Five Years
By Nadia Al-Khoury, Head of Digital Innovation, Emirates Financial Advisory GroupArtificial intelligence is already transforming Gulf banking, and the pace of change over the...
