Nessreen Tamano

During an official visit by Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri to Turkey to meet his counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and discuss bilateral cooperation, two entities signed an agreement to establish Turkey's first Islamic digital bank.

UAE-based digital banking app YAP has raised US$41 million to back its growth and expansion plans, through an investment round led by Shariah compliant Saudi firm Aljazira Capital.

Warba Bank has announced its entry into two metaverses, making it the first Islamic bank in the world and the first bank in Kuwait and the region to have a presence in the virtual world.

intech start-ups in Iran have received a boost of support with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI)’s recent launch of its regulatory sandbox — a major part of the regulator’s plans to reform the country’s banking sector, which is currently the only fully-fledged Islamic banking system in the world.

Cashew Payments Holding, a fintech start-up headquartered in the UAE, has attracted more support for the imminent launch of Cashew KSA, its operations in Saudi Arabia, with Saudi wholesale and retail trade company Al Hassan Ghazi Ibrahim Shaker Co (Shaker) looking into a possible investment into the former.

Rafiza Ghazali, who has announced her departure from Malaysian tech start-up funding agency Cradle...

Singapore-based Bankograph, a digital banking solutions provider, has partnered with Cambodia Asia Bank (CAB), a commercial bank with its headquarters in Phnom Penh, to offer Shariah compliant products to Cambodian customers.

Singapore’s ZA Tech Global, a digital insurance solutions provider, is the latest strategic business partner and investor of Bank Aladin, an Indonesian Islamic digital bank, to collaborate on insurtech offerings for Indonesian consumers.

Albania can expect to welcome its first digitalized Murabahah platform in less than three months, Amel Kovacevic, CEO of United Bank of Albania (UBA), told IFN, the sister publication of IFN Fintech.

Gulf African Bank (GAB), one of Kenya's three fully-fledged Islamic banks, has partnered with telecoms company Safaricom to launch Halal Pesa, a Shariah compliant mobile financing solution.

High-growth technology companies across the GCC region can expect a boost in capital funding with the launch of SHUAA Capital’s latest Shariah compliant fund, SHUAA Venture Partners.

BBS Invest, a Senegalese payment and digital solutions company, is currently working on what it says is the first SMART Tawarruq platform developed in West Africa.

The thriving Saudi Shariah compliant financing sector can expect to welcome a new player: Funding Souq, a homegrown digital lending platform that has recently closed a successful seed round, which is hoped to support its transition to more Islamic financial transactions.

Islamic fintech start-up IMAN, headquartered in Muslim-majority Uzbekistan, has successfully closed a US$1 million seed round led by institutional investors based in Singapore and the US.

In line with its commitment to developing and supporting innovation in the local banking sector, the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has granted a license to a new Shariah compliant digital bank — the third neobank to be established in the Kingdom.

Equity Solutionz, a company focusing on tax, audit, accounting and information technology solutions, announced that it has signed an MoU with global Islamic finance consulting firm Fineopolis to collaborate in their respective areas of expertise. Fineopolis is a Shariah advisory group based in Dubai, the UAE with a focus on sustainable development goals.

Digital financial services company M24, which has expressed its interest in becoming an Islamic digital bank in Malaysia, has announced its plan to establish an Islamic digital ecosystem serving SMEs, local suppliers, contractors and other stakeholders.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has accelerated its drive to set up digital banks in Pakistan — both Islamic and conventional — with its recently released Licensing and Regulatory Framework for Digital Banks.

Indonesia's Komite Nasional Ekonomi dan Keuangan Syariah (KNEKS), or the National Committee for Islamic...

Sedania As Salam Capital (SASC), an Islamic fintech solutions provider owned by Malaysian company Sedania Innovator, has joined the race to secure a digital banking license in the country, past the 30th June 2021 deadline that Bank Negara Malaysia had set for applications.

Shariah compliant peer-to-peer platform ALAMI and small business lending fintech company Impact Credit Solutions...

Preliminary discussions between Indonesia's Shariah compliant peer-to-peer platform ALAMI and Turkish officials could result in a new Islamic fintech start-up that serves both countries.

The US market, which currently only has Fair as its lone challenger bank catering...

The Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) has taken a step toward the digital transformation of Palestine’s banking sector by reviewing its neighbor Jordan’s financial technology development so far.