This month, the Saudi British Joint Business Council and the Saudi/UK Tech Hub led a trade and investment FinTech mission to Riyadh.
As part of the visit, the delegates engaged with some of the kingdom's leading FinTech players to discuss strengthening collaboration.
Our UK delegation was impressed by the modern, vibrant and progressive Saudi Arabia they came across. The FinTech mission was encouraged by the kingdom’s consistent message for technological evolution, its unique transformative economic and social reforms, and its keen desire to collaborate.
When I visited Saudi Arabia in October 2019, I had said that the kingdom could be on the brink of a FinTech revolution and projected that over the next decade, the country would embark on a journey of transformation that would catapult it to the forefront of the scene.
Clearly, I was wrong. It did not take Saudi Arabia a decade to kick-start its FinTech journey. The Arab world’s biggest economy is on the fast track to becoming not just regional, but a global FinTech hub.
Having recognised the importance of developing a diversified and effective financial sector to support Saudi Arabia’s economic development, public and private sectors have embarked on a journey to deliver the Financial Sector Development Programme (FSDP).
This year has been another milestone in the development of the Saudi FinTech industry: on May 24, the Saudi Council of Ministers approved the kingdom’s FinTech strategy as a new pillar in the Saudi Vision 2030.
In the UK, we are eager to support our Saudi friends and contribute to their FinTech success story, which in turn, will support entrepreneurship and diversification.
Saudi Arabia’s FinTech strategy aims to support the kingdom in becoming a leading force in the sector, with Riyadh becoming a global tech hub.
And this is where Saudi Arabia’s goals align with UK.
The UK is home to the largest and most forward-looking cluster of financial and professional services firms and a consumer base with one of the world’s highest FinTech adoption rates. Saudi Arabia has an emerging yet fast-growing and vibrant FinTech ecosystem and an ambition to become a leading strategic FinTech player located in between three continents.
Furthermore, the diversity of the UK’s FinTech ecosystem means that a number of UK-born FinTech firms present close synergies with the values and the profile of the Saudi customer.
British investors have also been clear about their desire to support Saudi FinTech entrepreneurs by investing in high-value companies and supporting their growth.
One such example is Oryx Fund, which is a Mena focused investment fund from London-based investment firm Hambro Perks, with a mandate to invest in game-changing early-stage technology companies led by great entrepreneurs in sectors such as FinTech.
Amid an increasingly polarised global economic order, both the UK and Saudi Arabia find themselves at strategic junctions in their global economic, political and social trajectory, and are seeking strategic partners that can help them deliver their goals.
Saudi Arabia is UK’s primary trading partner in the Middle East and the UK is kingdom’s closest European ally.
The UK was among the first in the world to recognise Saudi Arabia, with a diplomatic delegation sent to the kingdom. In turn, Saudi Arabia’s embassy in London was its second official foreign affairs body abroad.
Since that day, the two nations have worked together tirelessly to safeguard global energy security, lead peace efforts in the Middle East and supported each other through challenging times.
However, as Saudi Arabia develops and focuses on enabling financial institutions to support private sector growth, we must build a partnership around finance, technology and regional growth.
This was also the message conveyed by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G20 summit recently and highlighted the importance of working together.
Over the past few years, Saudi Arabia has been the birthplace of several FinTech success stories such as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform Lendo or buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) FinTech Tamara.
We want to ensure that the success story not only continues, but accelerates.
Roxana Mohammadian-Molina is chief strategy officer at London-based FinTech company Blend Network and board member of the Saudi British Joint Business Council
NBA FINALS SO FAR
(Toronto lead 3-2 in best-of-seven series)
Game 1 Raptors 118 Warriors 109
Game 2 Raptors 104 Warriors 109
Game 3 Warriors 109 Raptors 123
Game 4 Warriors 92 Raptors 105
Game 5 Raptors 105 Warriors 106
Game 6 Thursday, at Oakland
Game 7 Sunday, at Toronto (if needed)
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Squads
India (for first three ODIs) Kohli (capt), Rohit, Rahul, Pandey, Jadhav, Rahane, Dhoni, Pandya, Axar, Kuldeep, Chahal, Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar, Umesh, Shami.
Australia Smith (capt), Warner, Agar, Cartwright, Coulter-Nile, Cummins, Faulkner, Finch, Head, Maxwell, Richardson, Stoinis, Wade, Zampa.
Sreesanth's India bowling career
Tests 27, Wickets 87, Average 37.59, Best 5-40
ODIs 53, Wickets 75, Average 33.44, Best 6-55
T20Is 10, Wickets 7, Average 41.14, Best 2-12
The Florida Project
Director: Sean Baker
Starring: Bria Vinaite, Brooklynn Prince, Willem Dafoe
Four stars
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Golden Shoe top five (as of March 1):
Harry Kane, Tottenham, Premier League, 24 goals, 48 points
Edinson Cavani, PSG, Ligue 1, 24 goals, 48 points
Ciro Immobile, Lazio, Serie A, 23 goals, 46 points
Mohamed Salah, Liverpool, Premier League, 23 goals, 46 points
Lionel Messi, Barcelona, La Liga, 22 goals, 44 points
Race%20card
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Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Dunki
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THE BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
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The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
The struggle is on for active managers
David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.
The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.
Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.
Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.
Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.
At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn.
Company info
Company name: Entrupy
Co-founders: Vidyuth Srinivasan, co-founder/chief executive, Ashlesh Sharma, co-founder/chief technology officer, Lakshmi Subramanian, co-founder/chief scientist
Based: New York, New York
Sector/About: Entrupy is a hardware-enabled SaaS company whose mission is to protect businesses, borders and consumers from transactions involving counterfeit goods.
Initial investment/Investors: Entrupy secured a $2.6m Series A funding round in 2017. The round was led by Tokyo-based Digital Garage and Daiwa Securities Group's jointly established venture arm, DG Lab Fund I Investment Limited Partnership, along with Zach Coelius.
Total customers: Entrupy’s customers include hundreds of secondary resellers, marketplaces and other retail organisations around the world. They are also testing with shipping companies as well as customs agencies to stop fake items from reaching the market in the first place.
The Details
Kabir Singh
Produced by: Cinestaan Studios, T-Series
Directed by: Sandeep Reddy Vanga
Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Kiara Advani, Suresh Oberoi, Soham Majumdar, Arjun Pahwa
Rating: 2.5/5
ENGLAND TEAM
Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Joe Root (captain), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Craig Overton, Stuart Broad, James Anderson
Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
