#‏AbuDhabi's ADGM, Israeli Bank Hapoalim collaborate on FinTech development and innovation | ZAWYA MENA Edition

‏Abu Dhabi's ADGM, Israeli Bank Hapoalim collaborate on FinTech development and innovation | ZAWYA MENA Edition

Abu Dhabi Global Market, ADGM, and Bank Hapoalim have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, to jointly promote and develop financial technology (FinTech) innovation, ecosystems, and market opportunities that will support the digital transformation of the financial services landscape and connect the economies in the UAE and Israel.

Founded almost 100 years ago, Bank Hapoalim is Israel's most significant and leading financial institution. The bank is a household brand for consumer and corporate lending and resides over one of the largest retail branch network in the country.

As part of the MoU, ADGM and Bank Hapoalim will collaborate on a range of FinTech-related initiatives and innovation projects, including the development of FinTech solutions to facilitate international trade, business and financial services activities between the UAE and Israel. They will also support FinTech companies and entrepreneurs seeking to scale their presence and deployment across the UAE and Israeli markets.

Commenting on the new partnership, Dhaher bin Dhaher Al AlMheiri, CEO of the ADGM Registration Authority, said, "We are pleased to embark on a new era in the Middle East region to enable greater business and FinTech developments and foster beneficial technology collaborations and participation among ADGM, Abu Dhabi and Israel. ADGM is continuously working with strategic partners, locally and internationally, to further the Abu Dhabi and UAE’s economic plans and technology agenda, and we are excited to partner with Bank Hapoalim to advance the banking and financial services in both jurisdictions.

Western Union Buys 15% Stake in #Saudi Telecom’s STC Pay Unit - Bloomberg

Western Union Buys 15% Stake in Saudi Telecom’s STC Pay Unit - Bloomberg

Western Union Co. has acquired a 15% stake in STC Pay, an arm of Saudi Telecom Co. that is focused on digital payments and financial technology services.

Western Union purchased the stake for $200 million, the Saudi-based telecom operator said in a statement Saturday, valuing the company at about 5 billion riyals ($1.3 billion).

STC Pay, which goes by lower case lettering in its branding, is a financial company that launched a digital wallet mobile application in 2018. The e-platform provides digital and financial services to individuals and companies, and facilitates financial transactions and payments.

Saudi Telecom, also known as STC, said the investment is to “finance stc pay’s capital and to support long-term expansion plans.”

Goldman Says #Saudi Peg ‘Here to Stay,’ Though at Cost to Economy - Bloomberg

Goldman Says Saudi Peg ‘Here to Stay,’ Though at Cost to Economy - Bloomberg

Saudi Arabia is sacrificing non-oil economic growth with fiscal policies designed to ensure its currency peg’s stability during a period of low crude prices, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“Maintaining the riyal peg at current levels remains a key policy priority for the Saudi authorities,” Farouk Soussa, a London-based analyst at Goldman, said in a report to clients. “In a low oil price environment, however, this means that fiscal policy will have to tighten, keeping the budget deficit in check in order to ensure that external balances remain consistent with peg stability.”





Saudi Arabia tethers its currency to the dollar and tends to move in lockstep with the U.S. Federal Reserve. Although pressure intensified earlier this year with the collapse in crude prices, 12-month dollar-forwards for the Saudi riyal have since stabilized.

Goldman said the government’s fiscal plans will likely help the current account return to surplus next year and ensure that in the medium term foreign-exchange reserve steady at slightly over 80% of the narrow money measure, M1.

But “the sharp decline in projected expenditure penciled in over the next three years will depress non-oil economic growth,” Soussa said, forecasting it will average 1.2% year-on-year during that period, compared with trend growth of 2.5%.

Boosting Gulf’s economy leads to building more art districts, not museums | Financial Times

Boosting Gulf’s economy leads to building more art districts, not museums | Financial Times

Is the era of the mega-museum in the Arabian Gulf coming to an end? Over the last 15 years, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have spent vast amounts of money to erect headline-worthy museums such as the National Museum of Qatar and Louvre Abu Dhabi, both designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. 

Now, however, there is a growing emphasis in the region on initiatives that encourage creativity and the production of art, such as art districts. 

“It’s time to reinvent museums as active spaces of thinking as well as looking,” says Antonia Carver, director of the eponymous Arab foundation that runs the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai and is building a multidisciplinary arts complex in the Saudi city of Jeddah. 

“These sites of knowledge production and debate are even more acutely needed and possible in the Gulf, where there is everything to play for in forming and nurturing community amid a broader geopolitical context that is so turbulent.”

‘There will be shocks’: Yngve Slyngstad, Norway’s $1tn man | Financial Times

‘There will be shocks’: Yngve Slyngstad, Norway’s $1tn man | Financial Times

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is a fairytale of global finance. In less than 25 years investing the energy riches of the North Sea, it has grown into a $1.2tn giant; it owns 1.5 per cent of the world’s publicly traded companies. Who more stimulating for me to have my first formal lunch with in six months, I think, than the man who for more than a decade presided over this behemoth — and used its heft to hold company boards to account for their environmental and social impact? 

Yngve Slyngstad, who stepped down this summer, has proposed we meet at FishWorks in Marylebone, central London. From the outside, FishWorks looks like a small unadorned fishmonger. He leads me past crates of fresh fish into the restaurant area in the back. He likes it, he says, because it is “one of the few places where you know they actually receive their own catch”. 

He also chose it, he says, for the cryptic reason that “we could in theory call the fund the ‘fish fund’”. What he means, it turns out, is that the “oil” fund — which regularly covers a sixth of public expenditure — is unrelated to oil per se. What Norway has done is save its export surplus, which might as well have come from the country’s other bountiful North Sea resource. Most of the fund’s value comes from accumulated gains on bonds, shares and property. As he observes wryly: “We haven’t even started spending any of the oil money.”