The MENA startup ecosystem is shifting from growth at all costs to sustainable business models. What has changed, and what does it take to build a financially resilient startup from the outset?

I think the biggest change is that investors have become less willing to finance a business model indefinitely while founders work out the economics. A few years ago, a compelling growth story could carry a lot of weight. Today, people want to know what each additional customer costs, when that customer becomes profitable and how much cash the company needs to get there.

For me, resilience starts with knowing the difference between revenue, profit and cash. Having worked across telecom distribution, factoring and healthcare ventures, I’ve seen businesses look healthy on paper while working capital quietly becomes their biggest problem.

My advice is to start small enough to test your assumptions, know your margins well and build a business that can survive a slow month, not just celebrate a good one.

Raising capital is only one step towards building a successful business. What financial mistakes do startups commonly make after securing investment, and how can they avoid them?

The most common mistake is treating money in the bank as proof that the business has succeeded. Suddenly there is a bigger office, a larger team and three new markets on the roadmap, before the original model has really been proven. Fixed costs rise quickly, and reversing them is much harder.

I prefer to see founders tie each stage of spending to a milestone: demonstrating repeat purchases, shortening the sales cycle, improving gross margin or reaching a defined number of paying customers.

I’d also keep a fallback plan in case the next round takes twice as long as expected. Fundraising buys time, but what matters is what you prove during that time.

Drawing on your experience in structured finance, how should MENA founders choose between equity, debt and other financing options at different stages of growth?

I spent years in factoring and structured finance, and one lesson has stayed with me: match the type of financing to the risk you are financing.

Equity makes sense when the product, market or revenue model is still uncertain, because investors are sharing the risk of finding out whether the business works. Debt is better suited to predictable cash flows or identifiable assets. Once a business has reliable receivables, trade finance or factoring can fund working capital without giving away more ownership.

But debt is not a cure for an unprofitable business. It creates a payment obligation whether the next contract arrives or not. Founders should also watch for currency mismatches and personal guarantees. The cheapest-looking capital is not always the safest.

Access to capital varies across MENA markets. How should founders in emerging startup hubs approach financial planning differently from those in established ecosystems such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia?

First, I would resist treating MENA as a single market. Access to investors is only one difference. Collection cycles, currency exposure, regulation, customer purchasing power and the availability of experienced hires all change from country to country.

In a smaller funding ecosystem, I would plan for a longer fundraising process and keep costs as variable as possible. A local commercial partnership is often more useful early on than opening a fully staffed operation.

Even in the UAE or Saudi Arabia, access to capital does not mean every startup is fundable. Founders still have to show that they understand their own market. Expansion should follow customer evidence, not a regional map in a pitch deck.

Cash flow is critical to a startup’s survival. Which financial metrics should founders monitor, and how can they maintain cash flow discipline while pursuing growth?

I would start with five things: cash in the bank, monthly net burn, runway, gross margin and the time between invoicing a customer and actually collecting the money.

For subscription businesses, retention and customer acquisition cost matter enormously. For businesses selling to corporates or governments, receivables ageing can be just as important as revenue growth.

A simple weekly cash forecast looking 13 weeks ahead can prevent a lot of unpleasant surprises. I also like a monthly downside scenario: what happens if collections are delayed, or sales come in 25% below plan?

These are not glamorous exercises, but I’ve seen how quickly a growing business can run into trouble when sales rise faster than the cash needed to deliver them.

What makes a startup truly investor-ready today, particularly in terms of financial reporting, governance, unit economics and operational discipline?

Investor readiness is not a beautiful data room put together two weeks before a meeting. It is the discipline with which the business has been run over the previous year.

Can the founder explain the margin on a customer? Reconcile revenue to cash received? Show who owns the company, what obligations exist and which assumptions sit behind the forecast? Do they know how much of their revenue depends on a handful of customers?

In healthcare ventures such as Synovo, which I co-founded, financial planning also has to reflect clinical evidence, regulatory requirements and hospital procurement cycles. Ignore those realities and even an attractive forecast becomes meaningless.

Investors understand that early-stage businesses will not have perfect systems. What worries them is when founders cannot explain their numbers or become defensive when challenged. Being candid about risks usually strengthens investor confidence rather than weakening it.

How can MENA founders balance growth with profitability and reduce dependence on repeated funding rounds? When should they rethink their strategy if new investment fails to materialise?

Profitability does not need to arrive on day one, but the route to it should be visible. The test I use is whether growth improves the economics or simply increases the losses. If every new customer makes the funding gap bigger, scale is not solving the problem.

I would review the plan well before the runway becomes critical. If investment is uncertain, narrow the product range, protect the best customers, reduce fixed commitments and concentrate on revenue that turns into cash.

Sometimes a smaller, profitable core is the right foundation for a much larger company. Waiting until the last three months of cash to make those decisions usually leaves very few good options.

Through your involvement with the London Business School MENA Startup Competition, what distinguishes genuinely scalable startups from those with compelling pitches, and what will define the next generation of successful MENA businesses?

The competition reminded me that a polished pitch and a scalable business are two different things. The founders who caught my attention were not necessarily the ones with the grandest projections. They were the ones who could explain what customers had actually done, what they had learned from being wrong and what the next round of capital would achieve.

Our shortlisted teams were mentored by LBS alumni and volunteers, and it was encouraging to see founders willing to challenge their own assumptions rather than defend them.

I think the next generation of strong MENA businesses will combine regional ambition with local execution, sensible capital structures and the ability to earn customer trust.

Winning a competition can open doors. What founders build after the applause is what ultimately counts.

Dr. Nasir Khan is a medical doctor, entrepreneur and Sloan Fellow from London Business School. He has been building businesses since 2001 across telecom distribution, financial services, medtech and process manufacturing, and has co-founded ventures including Synovo, a UK-based digital health platform. He has also served as a judge for startup induction at the Punjab Information Technology Board’s incubation programme in Lahore and is Co-President of the LBS Entrepreneurship Club, MENA.

This week, much of the region’s technology community has gathered in Abu Dhabi for AI Everything, and the question on the show floor has moved on. A year ago, banks and insurers asked whether to deploy AI agents; today they want to know how to make those agents deliver results across an entire customer journey.

Government is setting the pace. On 5 October, the Dubai Future Foundation launched an agentic AI accelerator covering 33 government entities and more than 300 public-facing use cases, building on the federal target to run half of government services and operations on agentic AI within two years. Few countries have put a number and a deadline on agentic AI. The UAE has done both.

Finance is keeping up. The Dubai Financial Services Authority’s survey of 661 DIFC firms found that 52% now use AI, up from 33% a year earlier, while generative AI use rose by 166%; the regulator also noted that, for many firms, adoption is still at an early stage. UAE finance has AI in many places. The value comes when those pieces work together.

Work in financial services is fragmented

Follow a corporate account opening at a typical UAE bank. The application lands in a portal or a relationship manager’s inbox; documents and identity are checked, sanctions screening runs in a separate tool, a risk team reviews the file, a committee signs it off and operations sets up the account in core banking. That’s six steps, six systems and one waiting customer.

AI agents speed up individual steps: an agent can extract a trade licence in seconds or draft a risk summary in minutes. Then the file sits in a queue for a reviewer who has no idea it is ready. The task gets faster, while the journey stays as slow as its slowest handoff.

That gap is the coordination tax, made up of the hours lost chasing approvals, re-keying data and fielding “where is my application?” calls. In banking, insurance and payments, where one journey can cross half a dozen teams, it is often the largest cost nobody actually measures.

Process is the foundation

Institutions that turn AI into outcomes start by understanding how work actually runs, and regulated firms have a head start here because they already document their processes for supervisors. The task is to map those processes as they really operate (workarounds and exceptions included) and give each step to the right worker.

Steps that must run identically every time, such as sanctions checks and payment releases, suit rules-based workflow. Reading documents and reasoning over unusual cases suit AI agents. Judgement belongs to people. With the Central Bank’s AI guidance for the sector placing clear emphasis on human oversight, deciding where people sit in a process is now part of designing it.

Orchestration makes AI operational

Once the process is clear, orchestration connects it. It coordinates people, systems, data and agents across a whole journey, deciding who or what acts next and routing exceptions to the right person before they become delays.

Think of an airport, where more aircraft add capacity only when air traffic control sequences them. AI agents work in the same way.

For a bank or insurer, orchestration brings one view of every application, claim or payment. Core banking and policy platforms keep their role while work flows between them, and each orchestrated journey becomes a template for the next, so the tenth deployment goes live faster than the first.

A 90-day starting point

Finance can borrow the government’s 90-day rhythm. Pick one journey that crosses at least three systems and two departments, such as SME lending or a motor claim, and map it as it runs today. Count the handoffs and measure the time lost between them; that figure is your coordination tax. Then assign each step to a rule, an agent or a person, orchestrate the whole journey and track time to decision. Reuse what works.

The orchestrators will lead

At the accelerator launch, Digital Dubai’s Director General said the future of digital government depends on an integrated ecosystem that brings expertise, data and capabilities together. The same holds inside every bank.

Over the next year, the number of AI agent use cases across UAE banking and government will grow rapidly. The institutions that pull ahead will be those with a platform to orchestrate and govern those agents, taking them from pilot to production at scale, while keeping people in control. In the AI era, operational advantage belongs to the orchestrators.

The move reflects rising demand for specialist advice among internationally mobile individuals whose financial interests increasingly span multiple jurisdictions, asset classes, and lending structures. As Dubai continues to strengthen its position as a global wealth and investment hub, attracting entrepreneurs, family offices, investors, and high-net-worth individuals from around the world, the complexity of managing wealth across borders has increased significantly. Many of these individuals now live, work, invest, and hold assets internationally, creating borrowing requirements that often extend beyond conventional lending frameworks.

Henry Dannell’s expansion into Dubai is designed to bring the firm’s specialist expertise closer to the region’s growing network of wealth advisers, family offices, tax specialists, legal professionals, and internationally connected clients.

Founded in 2019, Henry Dannell has built a reputation for delivering bespoke credit and lending solutions for clients with highly sophisticated financial circumstances. The firm’s advisers support a broad spectrum of clients, from business owners and entrepreneurs to ultra-high-net-worth individuals, helping them navigate complex borrowing scenarios that frequently involve multiple jurisdictions, unconventional income structures, and international assets. Unlike traditional mortgage providers, Henry Dannell operates as a specialist advisory business focused on structuring tailored credit solutions and working alongside trusted professional advisers to address complex financing requirements.

The establishment of the DIFC representative office represents the first phase of the company’s broader regional growth ambitions and will serve as a hub for relationship-building, market engagement, and collaboration with professional advisory communities across the Middle East.

Kem Kemal, CEO and Co-Founder of Henry Dannell, said: “Over the last decade, we have seen a fundamental shift in how wealth is created, managed, and deployed. Successful individuals are increasingly global in their outlook. They may operate businesses in one country, hold investments in another, and seek opportunities across several markets simultaneously. Yet lending has not always evolved at the same pace.”

He explained that too often, highly accomplished individuals with substantial assets and strong financial positions encounter challenges because their circumstances fall outside conventional frameworks. “Our role is to understand the complete picture and design bespoke solutions that reflect the realities of modern international wealth.”

“Dubai has become one of the most important centers for global capital, entrepreneurship and wealth advisory services,” he added. “Establishing a presence within DIFC allows us to be closer to the professional advisers and internationally connected clients we serve, while strengthening relationships across a region that continues to play an increasingly influential role in global finance.”

With over 165 years of combined industry experience across its advisory team, Henry Dannell has developed specialist expertise across residential, commercial, and specialist lending transactions. Through its Dubai presence, Henry Dannell aims to deepen engagement with the region’s professional advisory ecosystem while contributing to discussions around international wealth, investment, and cross-border financial planning.

The UAE’s net wealth grew by 12.7% between 2024 and 2025, rising from $3.2 trillion to $3.6 trillion, according to Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Global Wealth Report 2026: The Great Reordering. Total Net wealth is forecast to reach $6 trillion by 2030, with a CAGR of 10.6%. This represents an increase of more than $2.3 trillion over the next five years. The projected growth points to the UAE’s long-term wealth creation potential. 

Financial wealth, including both investable and non-investable wealth, grew by 12.3% between 2024 and 2025, rising from $1.2 trillion to $1.4 trillion and is set to rise to $2.1 trillion by 2030 at a CAGR of 8.7%. Real assets reached $2.4 trillion in 2025 from $2.2 trillion in 2024, with projected growth to $4.2 trillion by 2030.

The findings show the resilience of the UAE wealth market amid a volatile global environment and heightened geopolitical uncertainty. “The ongoing conflict has introduced short-term volatility across Middle Eastern markets, with investor sentiment shaped by geopolitical uncertainty and oil-price movements,” said Lukasz Rey, Managing Director and Partner at BCG. “However, the region’s wealth development story remains structurally resilient over the five-year projection horizon. While we anticipate slightly lower growth over the next one to two years, a rebound is expected toward the latter part of the decade, supported by sovereign wealth strength, economic diversification agendas, family-business liquidity events, and continued private capital activity. We expect wealth managers to remain cautious in the near term; however, the long-term wealth opportunity in the Middle East remains intact.”

The report identifies a broader reordering underway across the global wealth-management industry, spanning geographic shifts, emerging-market wealth creation, intergenerational succession, and AI-driven operating model transformation.

Shifting Wealth Concentration Across UAE Population Segments

According to the report, the UAE’s financial wealth remains concentrated among high-net-worth individuals, with the composition of wealth expected to evolve by 2030 as more wealth accumulates within the lower high-net-worth segment. There are approximately 500 ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals, those with more than US$100 million in assets, in 2025, and they are expected to increase to around 800 by 2030, while their share of total financial wealth rises marginally from 26.3% to 26.5%. The upper high-net-worth segment (US$20–100 million) is forecasted to grow from approximately 2.7K to 4.2K individuals, with its share of wealth broadly stable at 7.4% in 2025 to 7.6% in 2030.

In contrast, the lower high-net-worth segment (US$1–20 million), which comprises approximately 200K individuals, is expected to increase its share of financial wealth from 29.3% in 2025 to 31.5% in 2030. The affluent segment (US$0.25–1 million) is expected to expand from approximately 500K to 600K individuals in 2030, while its share of wealth declines from 15.5% to 14.6% as wealth disperses across a larger base. The mass segment (below US$0.25 million) remains the largest by population, growing from roughly 8.6M to 9M individuals, but its share of financial wealth decreases from 21.5% to 19.8%.

The key UAE findings of BCG’s proprietary analysis are:

• Financial wealth reaches $1.4 trillion in 2025, with strong projected growth to $2.1 trillion by 2030 (CAGR: 8.7%)
• Real assets rose to $2.4 trillion in 2025 and are expected to hit $4.2 trillion by 2030 (CAGR: 11.5%)
• Liabilities climbed to $220 billion in 2025 from $210 billion in 2024, with projections indicating $340 billion by 2030 (CAGR: 8.9%)
• Cross-border financial wealth belonging to UAE residents and booked outside the UAE surged by 9.4% between 2024 and 2025 in the UAE, reaching $468.4 billion. It is forecasted to grow to $678.2 billion by 2030 with a CAGR of 7.7%.
• Separately, the UAE continues to strengthen its position as a global wealth booking center, with cross-border wealth belonging to international clients and booked in the country reaching $721 billion in 2025, up 11.1% year-on-year.
• Currency & Deposits, valued at $471.8 billion in 2025, is projected to grow to $778.9 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 10.5%
• Bonds are expected to reach $27.8 billion by 2030 from $15.9 billion in 2025, with a CAGR of 11.8%
• Equities, valued at $419.4 billion in 2025, are expected to reach $591.9 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 7.1%
• Life Insurance & Pensions are valued at $26.6 billion in 2025 and projected to grow to $48.4 billion by 2030 (CAGR: 12.7%)

AI Is Reshaping the Economics of Wealth Management 

BCG’s report finds that AI is beginning to reshape wealth-management economics and operating models. AI-powered tools are already drafting financial plans, automating compliance documentation, generating portfolio rationales, and predicting client churn. According to BCG analysis, AI-first wealth managers could unlock 25%–30% capacity gains across key workflows while increasing revenue per advisor by 15%–20%. The report argues that the industry is approaching a structural divide between firms redesigning workflows around AI agents and those layering AI tools onto legacy processes. 

“The UAE’s wealth pool is set to grow by more than $2 trillion over the next five years, and the constraint on capturing that growth is advisor capacity rather than client demand,” said Mohammad Khan, Managing Director and Partner at BCG. “Firms that are redesigning their workflows around AI agents are creating the headroom to serve a larger client base without diluting the quality of advice. Those layering AI onto legacy processes are paying for the technology without changing their economics, and that gap widens the longer it is left.”

Wealth managers face a choice between adapting incrementally and committing to an AI-first future, with the report identifying the latter as the more sustainable approach. Key priorities include:

• Map value chain exposure: Identify rules-based, templatized processes most vulnerable to automation. Distinguish truly bespoke, relationship-dependent work from structured, repeatable tasks to guide investment decisions.
• Attack high-cost workflows: Scale AI now in financial planning, portfolio management, and compliance, automated drafting, AI-generated rationales, knowledge assistants.
• Rebuild the advisor experience around AI: Integrate next-best-action prompts, retention alerts, automated documentation, and personalized outreach into a unified system.
• Encode institutional knowledge into agents: Pair top practitioners with engineers to build and refine AI agents. Embed advisor judgment into today’s agents, without centralized ownership and outcome-based evaluation, differentiation erodes.
• Prepare the tech stack for agents. Introduce a decoupled data layer separating operational systems from data consumption, delivering real-time, API-accessible data while maintaining deterministic control through transaction systems and rules engines.

The survey, conducted across 44 countries, also highlights the depth of the UAE’s digital engagement, with the country ranking first globally in government digital service usage at 53%. More than three-quarters (76%) of UAE respondents say their latest online government transaction delivered a better experience than their typical private-sector interaction, reinforcing the strength of the country’s digital government ecosystem.

This strong digital foundation is increasingly extending into AI adoption, where 82% of UAE respondents reported using AI weekly. High levels of usage are accompanied by relatively positive attitudes toward AI in government, with 53% of UAE respondents believing its benefits outweigh the risks, compared with 49% across the GCC and 36% globally. At the same time, greater exposure to AI is bringing a broader set of considerations into focus for citizens. While GCC citizens remain more optimistic about AI in government than their global peers, overall optimism has declined by 21% since 2024.

This evolution points toward a more hybrid model of service delivery. GCC citizens increasingly favor AI for simpler services while retaining human involvement for more complex interactions, which assures a shift that reflects greater awareness of both the opportunities and considerations associated with AI. At the same time, only around 4% of GCC respondents prefer human-only services with no AI support, compared with almost one in ten globally.

“The UAE’s strong digital government experience reflects years of investment in making public services more accessible, seamless, and responsive to citizens’ needs,” said Rami Mourtada, Partner & Director, Digital Transformation, BCG. “As AI becomes more embedded in public services, governments have an opportunity to build on this foundation with more AI-enabled experiences and process re-engineering to continue focusing on quality and convenience. This next phase will be about deploying AI where it creates clear value, while maintaining human expertise for more complex citizen needs.”

GCC Citizens Embrace the Next Generation of AI-Enabled Services

The BCG report also reveals strong appetite among GCC citizens for the next generation of AI-enabled government services. The region is the most AI-receptive globally, with 79% of citizens open to AI-centered government interactions, compared with 66% globally. Notably, three of the four most strongly supported AI applications in government are agentic use cases, signaling a healthy launchpad for governments to explore services that can move beyond providing information to supporting or completing actions on citizens’ behalf.

This openness is already evident across practical applications: 82% are comfortable with AI providing 24/7 access to information and services; 81% with AI supporting government customer-service agents; 79% with AI detecting fraud and automatically following up; and 78% with AI identifying services citizens qualify for and taking action on their behalf. [SM3] [GU4] Yet citizens are not calling for AI alone. Preference for “AI for simple services, people for complex ones” has risen nine percentage points to 50% over the past two years, reinforcing a hybrid model that combines AI-enabled speed and availability with human judgment for more complex or higher-stakes interactions.

This opportunity builds on a strong track record in digital government service quality. In 2026, the GCC remained the only surveyed region where a majority of citizens rated government digital services above those of the private sector, at 72%. However, private-sector experiences are gaining ground: the net share of GCC respondents rating government services above private-sector services declined from 75% in 2024 to 69% in 2026. The shift creates both a learning opportunity and an impetus for governments to continue innovating as citizen expectations evolve.

As governments move toward more advanced AI-enabled services, citizen AI literacy will be equally important. GCC respondents with expert-level AI proficiency are around four times more likely than those without AI experience to believe that the benefits of AI in government outweigh the risks.  At the same time, greater familiarity with AI is sharpening citizens’ expectations around how it is deployed. Job loss (33%) and accuracy (28%) now rank as the leading concerns, underscoring the importance of pairing AI literacy with safeguards that are visible and relevant to citizens.

“The GCC has a strong opportunity to translate its digital leadership into the next generation of AI-enabled government services,” said Dr. Lars Littig, Managing Director & Senior Partner, BCG. “As citizens become more familiar with AI, building literacy and trust will be critical to sustained adoption. The opportunity is to move forward with AI in ways that reflect how citizens want to engage, expanding automation and agentic capabilities where they create value, while retaining human judgment and embedding responsible safeguards where they matter most.”

Six Priorities for the Next Generation of Digital Government

To build on the region’s digital progress and maximize the potential of AI in government services, BCG’s report outlines six priorities for GCC governments:

1. Rethink core services with AI, redesigning them end to end rather than layering AI onto existing processes.
2. Learn from private-sector innovation as digital experiences improve and citizen expectations evolve.
3. Embed responsible AI through governance, testing, and safeguards that strengthen citizen trust.
4. Build the hybrid model citizens want, using AI for simpler interactions while retaining human expertise for complex or high-stakes needs.
5. Expand agentic AI services beyond information toward services that can support complete journeys and act on citizens’ behalf.
6. Advance AI literacy to build citizen understanding, confidence, and informed adoption.

Together, these priorities can help GCC governments build on a decade of digital progress and translate citizens’ openness to AI into the next generation of public services. By combining strong digital foundations with responsible AI adoption and continued access to human expertise, the region is well positioned to deliver services that are more proactive, personalized, and responsive to citizens’ evolving needs — while sustaining the trust that will be critical to long-term adoption

To access the full BCG Digital Government Citizen Survey2026, visit the link here.

How is the shift towards cloud-native core banking changing the way financial institutions in the GCC approach technology modernisation?

The biggest change is that banks are moving away from the idea that modernisation has to mean replacing everything at once.

In the GCC, we’re seeing more interest in a progressive approach, introducing new products, capabilities or customer journeys while continuing to use existing systems where they still make sense. Cloud-native and composable architecture makes that much more practical.

Unlike systems that are simply moved from on-premises infrastructure into the cloud, cloud-native architectures are designed so that capabilities can be deployed, updated and scaled more independently. This allows institutions to upgrade selected areas without having to tie every change to a large transformation programme.

GCC institutions also have to consider regulatory requirements, data governance and local market needs. It is not simply about moving systems to the cloud. Banks need to decide where data and capabilities should sit, how they are governed and how the overall environment remains resilient.

What are some of the key technology limitations of legacy core banking systems that GCC banks are looking to overcome today?

There are a few challenges that come up quite consistently.

The first is speed. Many legacy platforms were designed around batch processing, so getting a current view of the customer or making decisions in real time can be difficult.

The second is fragmented data. Customer information and banking capabilities can sit across different systems for deposits, lending, payments, cards and other services. That creates complexity and makes it harder to deliver a consistent customer experience.

The third is product agility. With heavily customised and hard-coded systems, launching a new product or changing an existing one can take months.

And finally, there is integration. When every new fintech, payment provider or ecosystem partner requires another point-to-point integration, the technology environment becomes harder to manage.

For GCC institutions, the challenge is not simply to replace an old system. It is to reduce dependencies and create a more flexible foundation that makes integration, localisation and regulatory change much easier to manage.

Fimple takes an API-first approach to core banking. How does this architecture help financial institutions integrate emerging technologies and third-party services more efficiently?

In an API-first architecture, integration is part of the platform from day one rather than something added afterwards.

At Fimple, core banking capabilities such as accounts and deposits, lending, payments and limits can be accessed through APIs. That makes it much easier for financial institutions to connect channels, fintech partners, wallets, payment providers and other services.

These services are designed to be accessible and reusable. Instead of building a completely different integration every time a new partner comes in, institutions can use the same underlying architecture and governance model.

This approach is particularly relevant in the GCC because every market has its own ecosystem and local requirements. Banks need the flexibility to connect to local payment infrastructures, regulatory services and fintechs without rebuilding their core every time.

As banks increasingly adopt AI and automation, what role does a modern core banking platform play in enabling these technologies at scale?

AI is moving from something that sits around the bank to becoming part of how it operates.

Today, many institutions already use AI for functions like customer assistants, fraud detection, document processing or analytics. However, scaling AI requires a strong foundation underneath it.

AI needs access to accurate and timely data, clearly defined business rules and secure ways to interact with banking capabilities, with the right controls and human oversight.

At Fimple, we see the next step as agentic AI interacting with banking capabilities through secure APIs and controlled workflows. An AI agent could, for example, support an onboarding process, assist with servicing, or work within a lending or payment process while the bank still controls what the agent is allowed to do.

The goal is not simply to make a core banking platform AI-enabled. The real opportunity is to build a platform that is AI-ready by design.

How important is interoperability in the GCC financial ecosystem, particularly as banks, fintechs and digital financial platforms become increasingly connected?

Banks, fintechs, wallets, payment providers and digital platforms across the GCC are becoming more connected, and customers expect their experiences to work together.

For financial institutions, that means the ability to work securely with partners is becoming a business capability, not just an IT requirement.

There is also an important GCC dimension here. The GCC may be viewed as one market from a broader economic perspective, but each country has its own regulatory environment, payment infrastructure and requirements. Institutions need a common foundation that can still accommodate those differences.

This is where composable, API-led architecture can help. Institutions can connect capabilities, launch new propositions and adapt to local requirements without redesigning the entire banking platform each time.

Ultimately, interoperability gives financial institutions the flexibility to participate in the wider ecosystem rather than trying to build everything themselves.

The global minimum tax, known internationally as Pillar Two, was agreed by more than 140 countries and jurisdictions through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It requires the largest international groups to pay at least 15% tax on profits earned in every country where they operate, with any shortfall, known as a top-up tax, becoming payable. The UAE adopted it through Cabinet Decision No. 142 of 2024, effective for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2025, and collects the shortfall on UAE profits locally rather than ceding it abroad.

The rules apply only to groups with worldwide revenue of at least EUR 750 million, approximately USD 860 million, in two of the previous four years. Many UAE businesses have concluded this places them safely outside. Dhruva identifies four points at which a transaction changes that assessment.

The first is scale. When two groups combine, their revenues are assessed together. A buyer with EUR 500 million of revenue acquiring a business with EUR 300 million enters the regime on completion, though neither neared the threshold alone.

“The threshold test is where most boards are caught out,” said Nimish Goel, Leader, Middle East Dhruva, A Ryan LLC Affiliate. “Two mid-sized businesses, each outside the regime, combine and find themselves inside it from day one. This is routinely delegated to the finance function when it belongs with those setting the price. Established at screening stage, the analysis costs little. Discovered after signing, it is hard to reverse.”

The second is timing. The tax is calculated annually on a country-wide basis and does not divide when ownership transfers, so a business being sold stays within the seller’s figures until legal completion, whenever the buyer assumes commercial risk. Completing on the first day of a financial year removes the problem.

The third is visibility. A group’s UAE companies are assessed together rather than individually, so a target cannot be evaluated in isolation.

“A business has no tax position of its own while it remains inside a seller’s group,” said Bhakti Thakker, Partner, Mergers and Acquisitions and International Tax at Dhruva, A Ryan LLC Affiliate. “The rate is an average across every company the seller holds in that country, so the buyer is pricing something it cannot fully see. Companies in the same country may also be required to settle one another’s liability, which a warranty does not address. The contract needs a defined section on who prepares the calculation, who bears the cost, and how it settles once figures are final.”

The fourth is the acquisition premium. Where a buyer pays more than the accounting value of a business, part of that cost is ordinarily written off over time, reducing taxable profit. The global minimum tax rules largely disregard those write-offs, leaving taxable profit higher than expected.

Two further developments narrow the margin. The allowance groups receive for genuine operations in a country, based on employment costs and physical assets, reduces annually by design, from 9.6% and 7.6% respectively in 2025 to 9.4% and 7.4% in 2026, and 5% each by 2033. A transitional simplification sparing some groups the full calculation ends for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027.

Ownership structure is decisive for sovereign wealth funds and private equity investors. Government bodies fall outside the rules, but that status does not extend to the companies they hold, and where investments sit beneath a holding company that is not a government body, the whole group is in scope.

Dhruva recommends four steps ahead of any transaction. Buyers should test the combined revenue threshold when a target is first identified, not during contract negotiation, and model the tax as a cash cost in financial projections, allowing for the reducing allowance. Sellers should prepare tax records for inspection in advance, since a position that cannot be evidenced invites a price reduction. Both should review insurance cover, which frequently excludes a risk already identified during due diligence. “Businesses that address this early are negotiating from a position of information. Those that do not are negotiating on assumption,” concluded Bhakti.

The partnership was formalized during a signing ceremony attended by senior leaders from Al Masraf, Sukoon Insurance and Sukoon Takaful, marking an important milestone in the Bank’s efforts to strengthen its offerings and provide customers with more comprehensive financial solutions through trusted partners.

Under the strategic partnership, Sukoon Insurance and Sukoon Takaful will join hands with Al Masraf, enabling the Bank to offer customers access to a range of insurance and takaful solutions designed to meet the evolving protection needs of individuals and businesses.

The collaboration brings together Al Masraf’s established banking platform and customer relationships with Sukoon’s extensive insurance expertise and distribution capabilities. It reflects a shared commitment to delivering greater choice, convenience and value to customers while supporting their broader financial wellbeing.

Fuad Mohamed, Chief Executive Officer of Al Masraf, said: “Our partnership with Sukoon Insurance and Sukoon Takaful reflects our commitment to building an ecosystem of trusted partners that enables us to offer our customers more complete financial solutions.” 

He continued: “Insurance and protection are an important part of long-term financial wellbeing, and through this collaboration, we are bringing together the strengths of leading organizations to provide greater choice and convenience to our customers. We look forward to building a strong and successful partnership with Sukoon as we continue to enhance the overall customer experience at Al Masraf.”

Ahmad Yousuf, Chief Retail Banking Officer of Al Masraf, said: “This partnership is an important step in bringing greater choice and convenience to our customers by making relevant insurance and takaful solutions more accessible through their strategic relationship.”

He added: “Sukoon’s strong market expertise and customer-focused approach make them a valuable partner for Al Masraf, and we look forward to working closely together to deliver solutions that are simple, relevant, and aligned with our customers’ needs.”

With operations spanning all Emirates in the UAE and Oman, Sukoon Insurance is among the UAE’s leading insurance providers. Sukoon serves businesses and individuals through a broad distribution network comprising branches, brokers, agencies, e-commerce platforms and a dedicated call centre.

Sukoon Takaful PJSC is one of the UAE’s leading takaful providers. The company provides general and family takaful solutions designed to meet the protection needs of individuals and businesses, supported by a strong capital base and disciplined approach to risk.

Commenting on the partnership, Hammad Khan, Interim CEO and Chief Financial Officer at Sukoon Insurance, said, “We are pleased to partner with Al Masraf as this collaboration reflects our shared commitment to help customers access protection solutions through convenient and trusted channels. By combining Al Masraf’s strong customer relationships and banking expertise with Sukoon’s insurance capabilities, we aim to deliver greater value, broader choice and an enhanced customer experience for individuals and businesses across the UAE.”

He added, “Alongside Sukoon Insurance’s product offering, our subsidiary Sukoon Takaful will provide Shariah-compliant takaful solutions to Al Masraf customers, enabling us to deliver a comprehensive suite of protection solutions tailored to different customer preferences and needs.”

Ahmed Abushanab, Chief Executive Officer of Sukoon Takaful, said, “Partnering with Al Masraf is an important opportunity to bring accessible Sharia-compliant Takaful solutions to more customers. As Al Masraf marks 50 years of serving its customers, we are pleased to join them during this significant milestone as we build a partnership focused on providing relevant protection solutions that support customers’ financial needs and offer greater peace of mind.”

The signing ceremony brought together senior representatives from both organizations. Representing Sukoon were Hammad Khan, CFO & Interim CEO, Sukoon Insurance; Ahmed Abushanab, CEO, Sukoon Takaful; Aditya Kulkarni, Executive Vice President, Head of Distribution UAE; Ashish Kumar Singh, Head of Bancassurance and Affinity; Dexter Fernandes, Head of Bancassurance Distribution and Partnership; and Mostafa Adel, Head of Bancassurance Distribution and Partnership.

Representing Al Masraf was Fuad Mohamed, Chief Executive Officer; Ahmad Yousuf, Chief Retail Banking Officer, Shaimaa Higazy, Products Unit Head; and Rojeh Ghassan, AVP Products unit. The strategic partnership reinforces Al Masraf’s focus on expanding its financial services ecosystem and developing partnerships that support customers across their broader financial journeys. 

Through the collaboration with Sukoon Insurance and Sukoon Takaful, Al Masraf will continue to explore opportunities to enhance its customer offering and deliver relevant insurance and takaful solutions to its customers.

-END-

About Al Masraf

Founded in 1976, under Federal Decree No. 50, signed by His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Al Masraf (Arab Bank for Investment & Foreign Trade) is a trusted UAE financial institution with a distinguished legacy of supporting trade, investment and economic development. Built on long-standing relationships, deep market expertise and a commitment to personalized service, the Bank serves corporations, businesses, individuals and families through tailored financial solutions designed to meet their evolving needs.

Guided by its promise of “Empowering Future Legacies,” Al Masraf is advancing a new phase of growth focused on deepening client relationships, enhancing banking experiences and delivering future-ready financial solutions. As a progressive, connected and trusted financial partner, the Bank combines proven expertise with responsible innovation to create lasting value for clients, support sustainable prosperity and contribute to the UAE’s long-term economic ambitions.

The Bank delivers integrated banking solutions through its Wholesale Banking and Retail Banking franchises, combining sector expertise, relationship-led Corporate and Financial Institutions coverage, transaction banking, financing, capital solutions and risk management capabilities to support clients’ growth ambitions and contribute to the UAE’s economic development.

For more information, visit www.almasraf.ae.

About Sukoon Insurance

Established in 1975, Sukoon Insurance PJSC (“Sukoon”) – a public stock company – is among the leading insurance providers in the UAE. Sukoon provides a range of comprehensive insurance solutions for motor, life, health, and general (property, energy, engineering, aviation, marine, and liability) needs to its 1.6 million insured members. Sukoon’s operations span across Oman and all Emirates in the UAE.

Sukoon is committed to providing outstanding insurance solutions which help create and protect wealth and wellbeing. The Dubai-based company stays true to its vision by serving businesses and individuals with a team of over 700 professionals through an intensive distribution network of branches, brokers, bancassurance partners, agencies, e-commerce platforms, and a dedicated call centre.

In 2025, Sukoon registered gross written premiums (GWP) of AED 7 billion. With a solvency ratio of 275 percent and exemplary ratings from Standard and Poor’s (A rated) and Moody’s (A2 rated), it clearly demonstrates its financial soundness, robustness in risk management processes, effective governance, and ability to serve its clients effectively in the long run.

At its core, the Company is customer-centric, with a keen devotion towards providing exceptional services. Its priority has always been to build long-term relationships with its clients with their delight as its non-negotiable objective.

Put simply, Sukoon wants to continue reinforcing its position as a reference for other insurers in the region for exemplary customer service.

Most people hear the word “debt” and think of stress, bankruptcy and sleepless nights. It is the villain of personal-finance books and the scapegoat of every economic crisis. But after years of building ventures and, at Revona, structuring financing for developers and corporates every day, I have come to see debt very differently.

Debt is not merely a burden to be minimised. It is one of the most elegant, powerful and, yes, contradictory ideas humanity has ever invented.

That distinction matters especially now. Higher rates have made the cost of debt more visible, while a wall of maturities is turning yesterday’s cheap money into tomorrow’s refinancing decision. The response should not be to romanticise leverage. It should be to become more exacting about the work debt is asked to do.

Debt Is Older Than Money Itself

Long before coins and banknotes, communities ran on credit: promises recorded on clay tablets and in shared memory. Debt is, at its core, a technology for moving value through time. It lets tomorrow’s income fund today’s ambition. When a developer borrows to build a tower, or a founder raises venture debt to extend runway, they are pulling the future forward. That is not recklessness; it is one mechanism through which economies compound.

But the debt debate often starts in the wrong place. There is no magic ratio at which prudent borrowing becomes recklessness. A debt ratio is a snapshot; the real story is what the money is financing, whether cash flow can carry it and whether the borrower has time to adapt when conditions change. That is why the quality of the investment, the maturity profile and the resilience of the balance sheet matter more than the headline number alone.

In the architecture of the modern economy, debt does something even more subtle. It reduces the cost of financial oversight, helps create money through the banking system and smooths the path of economic growth. Every mortgage, every credit facility and every bond issue is a small act of coordinated trust between strangers. Trust, priced and packaged, is what capital markets actually trade.

The Debt That Never Dies

The numbers tell a more precise story than the usual rhetoric. Global debt reached a record nearly $353 trillion by the end of March 2026, according to the Institute of International Finance. That figure covers public, corporate and household debt. At the same time, the global debt-to-GDP ratio stood at about 305%, broadly stable since 2023. A record stock of debt, in other words, does not by itself tell us whether borrowers can carry it; the relationship between liabilities, income, assets and refinancing capacity does.

Nor should a stable global aggregate be mistaken for an all-clear. The IIF reported that debt in mature markets edged lower in the first quarter, while debt in emerging markets excluding China rose to a record $36.8 trillion. Debt is never one homogeneous thing. Its burden depends on who owes it, in what currency, at what rate, for how long, and against which cash flows.

The immediate market test is refinancing. The OECD expects governments and companies to borrow $29 trillion from bond markets in 2026 — 17% more than in 2024 and roughly double the amount ten years ago. Much of that activity is not fresh expansion; it is the constant work of renewing obligations. The OECD estimates that 78% of OECD government borrowing in 2026 will refinance existing debt. That is why the calendar can matter as much as the headline debt total.

The U.S. Lesson: Borrowing Can Stabilise Growth

The United States makes the point in unusually stark terms. The Office of Management and Budget’s fiscal-year-end measure of federal debt held by the public — the debt outside federal government accounts — rose from 25.2% of GDP in FY1981 to 99.5% in FY2025.

That is a profound change, but it was not a straight line and it cannot be explained by one White House. The ratio fell from 46.8% in FY1992 to 33.7% in FY2000, then rose through the financial crisis and jumped during the pandemic. The chart shows presidential terms as chronology, not as a scorecard: a fiscal year spans two calendar years, and debt reflects Congress, inherited commitments, recessions, interest costs and emergencies as well as executive choices.

Figure 1. U.S. federal debt held by the public as a share of fiscal-year GDP. Source: Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, Table 7.1 (FY2027 release). Debt is measured at fiscal-year end. Administration bands identify the president in office on that date; they do not attribute causation.

The more useful lesson is not that a larger debt stock automatically produces prosperity. It is that, when private demand collapses, borrowing can prevent a deeper contraction. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the major pandemic laws enacted in 2020 increased real GDP by 4.7% in 2020 and 3.1% in 2021, relative to an implied no-legislation baseline.

That is a concrete example of debt financing acting as a bridge: preserving household income, business liquidity and state and local services at a moment when the alternative was a sharper fall in economic activity.

But bridges must lead somewhere. CBO also projected that the additional debt would raise borrowing costs and reduce output and national income over the longer term. The point is not to celebrate the size of the U.S. debt pile. It is to recognise that borrowing can be a positive driver of growth when it is targeted at a productive investment or a defined emergency — and that its value erodes when cash flows, repayment capacity and the economic return are treated as afterthoughts.

The Beautiful Contradiction

Debt is a paradox, and that is precisely what makes it beautiful. It is simultaneously:

The same instrument that funds a hospital can sink a household. The same leverage that lets a developer sell units before completion can, if mispriced, freeze an entire market. Debt does not care about intentions; it amplifies what is already there. Good projects can become great. Weak projects can fail faster. That amplification is the whole point.

The Revona Angle: Debt as Craft, Not Gamble

This is exactly where Revona operates, and why I find this space so compelling as a builder. If debt is a powerful but indifferent amplifier, the real value lies not in whether a client borrows, but in how the debt is engineered: the rate, the loan-to-value, the tenor, the covenants and the match between an asset’s cash flows and the facility that finances it.

Those are not cosmetic details. A lower headline rate can be a poor bargain if it comes with a refinancing date that arrives before the asset can reliably generate cash. A high loan-to-value ratio may look efficient until a change in valuations removes the borrower’s room for error. A fixed rate can buy time, but it does not eliminate the economics of refinancing.

That final distinction is becoming more important. The Federal Reserve reported in 2025 that long-term, fixed-rate liabilities had softened the initial pass-through of higher rates for large public companies. Yet about 15% of investment-grade bonds and 27% of high-yield bonds were due to mature within one to three years. The protection was real; it was also time-limited.

The OECD has similarly warned that, as higher long-term rates lead borrowers to issue at shorter maturities, near-term interest costs may fall while near-term refinancing risk rises.

At Revona, we treat financing as a craft. We map a client’s full balance sheet, identify untapped equity and structural inefficiencies, and match their profile against the lending criteria of more than sixty banks and institutions to find the optimal structure, not simply the fastest “yes.”

For developers, well-structured off-plan financing can mean buyers are pre-approved during construction, sales accelerate and project cash flow improves. Debt, structured properly, stops being merely a cost of doing business and becomes a competitive advantage.

The failures we associate with debt — the crashes, defaults and horror stories — are more often failures of structure and underwriting than evidence that debt is inherently flawed. They arise when there is too much leverage against too little cash flow; when short-term money funds long-term assets; when currency, revenue and debt-service obligations do not match; or when no one has stress-tested the downside.

The instrument gets blamed for the craftsmanship.

The Takeaway

Debt is usually framed as financial pressure and bankruptcy risk, but its role in the modern economy runs far deeper. It is a centuries-old technology for turning trust into growth, a nearly $353 trillion river of contractual claims, and a mirror that reflects the discipline — or indiscipline — of whoever wields it.

The world’s most sophisticated companies and governments do not avoid debt. They engineer it. As builders and investors, that should be our posture too: respect the contradiction, master the structure and let leverage do what it was invented to do — move the future forward.

AJ is a venture builder. Revona is a financing partner and portfolio manager providing institutional-grade credit and debt financing solutions for developers and corporates.

PATRIZIA, a global investment manager in real assets, has announced the appointment Hassan Awada as Senior Executive Officer (SEO), MENA. Based in ADGM, the international financial centre of the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi, Awada will lead the continued growth of PATRIZIA’s business across the MENA region, with a focus on deepening relationships with institutional investors and strategic partners and providing access to PATRIZIA’s international real assets investment platform.

Awada brings over 20 years of experience advising institutional investors across the full investment lifecycle, including origination, structuring, execution and asset management. Prior to joining PATRIZIA, he held senior roles at Kroll, Cornerstone Capital, Gleacher Shacklock, PwC and EY.

Konrad Finkenzeller, Head of Client Division at PATRIZIA, commented: “The Middle East is a key strategic region for PATRIZIA, and we continue to see strong demand from investors for direct exposure to high-quality real estate and infrastructure opportunities globally. Hassan’s appointment strengthens our presence on the ground and enhances our ability to deepen relationships with regional investors and connect them with PATRIZIA’s global investment platform.”

Hassan Awada, SEO MENA at PATRIZIA, added: “Real assets have long underpinned Middle Eastern economies and will continue to play a central role in the region’s growth. Meeting increasingly sophisticated investor needs requires tailored, strategic solutions. With its global platform and 42-year track record, PATRIZIA is well positioned to deliver. Our focus will be on building long-term partnerships with investors across the region and supporting their access to PATRIZIA’s global investment capabilities, aligned with their strategic priorities and long-term objectives.”

Arvind Ramamurthy, Chief Market Development Officer, ADGM, said: “This appointment reflects the firm’s strong growth trajectory in the Middle East and its commitment to expanding from Abu Dhabi. It also underscores ADGM’s role as a leading international financial centre, enabling firms to establish and scale their regional presence from the capital.”

With EUR 17.5 billion in Living assets under management, PATRIZIA is one of Europe’s largest residential investment managers and continues to grow its platform across major urban markets. The firm is currently delivering new housing across a number of European markets, including Germany, UK & Ireland, Spain and Belgium, reflecting the scale of its European platform. Alongside Living, PATRIZIA is expanding its infrastructure platform across energy, digital and smart city assets, supporting the transition to low-carbon and connected economies while delivering long-term, resilient returns for investors.