By Salah Sardouk, Founder of Apex Atlas Global

The GCC has become one of the world’s fastest-growing tourism and hospitality destinations. From iconic luxury hotels and integrated resorts to entertainment districts and giga projects, the region is redefining what world-class hospitality looks like. Governments across the UAE and Saudi Arabia have placed tourism at the centre of their economic diversification strategies, while developers continue to invest billions of dollars in creating destinations that attract visitors from every corner of the world.

As competition intensifies, however, luxury is being redefined. Exceptional architecture, premium amenities, and personalized experiences remain essential, but they are no longer enough on their own. Today’s travellers expect something more fundamental: confidence that the environments they choose are safe, resilient, and prepared for an increasingly complex world.

Safety has evolved beyond regulatory compliance. It has become an integral part of the guest experience and one of the hospitality industry’s most valuable differentiators. The properties that will define the next generation of luxury are those that seamlessly combine exceptional design with secure, future-ready infrastructure that protects both guests and business continuity.

This shift reflects broader changes in traveller expectations. Guests are more informed than ever before, with instant access to information about destinations, hotels, and global events. They are increasingly conscious of health, security, digital privacy, and operational resilience when making travel decisions. Whether travelling for business or leisure, they expect hospitality providers to anticipate risks before they become disruptions.

For hospitality developers across the GCC, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity. Building guest confidence is no longer achieved solely through outstanding service. It begins much earlier, during the planning, engineering, and construction of every hospitality asset.

Behind every luxury hotel lies an extensive network of systems that most guests never notice. Fire protection, intelligent building management, access control, surveillance technologies, emergency communications, resilient utilities, and secure operational facilities all work together to create an environment where visitors feel protected without ever feeling restricted.

The most successful hospitality developments are those where security is virtually invisible yet consistently effective. Guests should never feel surrounded by security measures, but they should always experience the confidence that comes from a property designed to perform under any circumstance.

Achieving this balance requires safety to be embedded into the development process from the very beginning. Too often, security is viewed as something that can be added after a building has been designed. In reality, resilient infrastructure starts with the earliest planning decisions. Site layouts, circulation routes, building systems, operational workflows, and technology integration all influence how effectively a property can respond to emergencies while maintaining an exceptional guest experience.

This integrated approach is becoming increasingly important as hospitality developments across the GCC grow larger and more complex. Mixed-use destinations now combine hotels, residences, retail, entertainment venues, conference facilities, wellness centres, and public spaces within a single development. Managing these interconnected environments requires infrastructure that supports seamless operations while maintaining the highest standards of safety and resilience.

Technology is also reshaping how hospitality assets are managed. Artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance, Internet of Things solutions, and smart building platforms are enabling operators to identify issues before they affect guests. Intelligent systems can monitor equipment performance, optimize energy consumption, detect operational anomalies, automate maintenance schedules, and improve emergency response times.

The result is a shift from reactive management to proactive operations. Instead of responding to failures after they occur, hospitality operators can increasingly predict and prevent them. This not only enhances operational efficiency but also strengthens guest confidence by ensuring consistent service delivery.

Digital infrastructure has become equally important. Modern travellers expect mobile check in, digital room keys, contactless payments, personalized digital services, and seamless connectivity throughout their stay. While these technologies improve convenience, they also introduce new security considerations. Protecting guest information and securing operational systems have become essential components of hospitality resilience. Cybersecurity is no longer solely an IT responsibility; it is now part of the overall guest experience and a critical element of maintaining trust.

The GCC is particularly well positioned to lead this transformation. Across the region, governments are investing in smart cities, digital infrastructure, and sustainable urban development while introducing increasingly sophisticated building standards. Hospitality developers have an opportunity to integrate these advancements into projects from day one, creating destinations that are not only visually impressive but also operationally resilient.

This is especially relevant as the UAE continues to strengthen its position as a global tourism hub. Visitors choose the country not only for its attractions and luxury offerings but also because it consistently demonstrates high standards of safety, organization, and infrastructure. Maintaining this reputation requires continuous investment in facilities that are capable of adapting to evolving risks while supporting uninterrupted operations.

From my experience delivering specialized infrastructure, secure facilities, and complex construction projects across the UAE and GCC, one lesson has remained consistent: the strongest projects are never defined solely by what guests can see. Their long-term success depends on the quality of the systems operating behind the scenes. Infrastructure that prioritizes resilience, operational efficiency, and security ultimately creates better experiences for everyone who uses the space.

This philosophy extends beyond physical security. Sustainable infrastructure, resilient utilities, efficient building systems, and integrated operational planning all contribute to creating hospitality assets that perform reliably over decades rather than years. Developers who make these investments early benefit from lower lifecycle costs, improved operational efficiency, and stronger long-term asset value.

Ultimately, safety should not be viewed as a cost or a regulatory obligation. It is an investment in reputation. Every uninterrupted guest experience, every efficiently managed facility, and every well-prepared response to an unexpected event reinforces trust in the brand. In an industry where reputation influences every booking decision, that trust becomes one of the most valuable assets a hospitality business can possess.

As tourism across the GCC continues its remarkable growth, hospitality developers have an opportunity to redefine luxury for a new generation of travellers. The industry’s future will not be shaped solely by iconic architecture or exceptional service, but by destinations that provide confidence through intelligent design, resilient infrastructure, and operational excellence.

The most memorable guest experiences are often created by what never happens. Guests may never notice the sophisticated fire engineering, secure operational systems, resilient digital infrastructure, or integrated emergency planning that protect their stay. What they do notice is the confidence those systems create. They notice how smoothly a property operates, how prepared staff are, and how effortlessly every aspect of the experience comes together.

In the years ahead, safety will no longer remain an invisible operational function working quietly in the background. It will become one of the defining characteristics of premium hospitality. In a region leading the world in ambitious tourism development, building secure, future-ready infrastructure will be just as important as creating extraordinary destinations. Because today, the greatest luxury any hotel or resort can offer is not simply comfort or exclusivity, but the confidence that every detail has been designed with guests’ safety and wellbeing in mind.

Udrive, the UAE’s leading car-sharing platform, has strengthened its mobility network across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ajman, as app-based car access becomes a bigger part of how people move across the country. In 2025 alone, Udrive customers have driven more than 45 million kilometres, reflecting rising demand for smarter urban mobility that aligns with the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan’s focus on flexible means of transportation.

The growth reflects Udrive’s expanding role as a practical alternative to traditional car rental and private car ownership. The platform now operates a fleet of over 2,000 vehicles and has completed more than three million rentals to date. In 2025, Udrive recorded over half a million trips, while registrations grew by 14% compared with 2024, indicating stronger adoption among customers seeking on-demand access to vehicles.

Residents make up 90% of Udrive’s customer base, showing how car sharing has become part of daily commuting, errands, weekend plans and short-term transport needs. Retention has strengthened, with active customers for 12 months or more rising from 21% to 32%. Growth across shorter-term segments has also supported higher trip volumes and revenue, pointing to sustained adoption among both new and returning users.

Fleet choice has also expanded; Udrive now offers vehicles from Kia, Ford, BYD and MINI, with Toyota, Suzuki, Nissan and Mitsubishi also available on the platform. With the company’s ongoing partnership with AGMC, recent additions include MINI Cooper S and John Cooper Works models, the launch of MINI Convertibles. Udrive has also added hybrid BYD Song and BYD QIN vehicles to its fleet, offering customers premium, lower-emission mobility options.

“At Udrive, our growth is being shaped by customers who want access without the cost and commitment of ownership. Expanding across four emirates and growing our fleet gives residents and visitors the freedom to choose the right car for every journey. Stronger retention shows that flexible mobility is becoming part of daily life in the UAE, while supporting a more practical alternative to private vehicle dependency,” said Hasib Khan, Founder and CEO of Udrive.

As part of its wider network growth, Udrive has added new Business Zones in Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman, extending coverage across almost every area within its operating network. This gives customers more flexibility to pick up and end trips across key residential, commercial and lifestyle districts, supporting everyday journeys across the UAE’s major urban centres.

Through the Udrive app, customers can locate, book and unlock a vehicle in minutes, with flexible rental options by the minute, hour, day, week or month. The service is designed around convenience and transparency, with zero deposit, no paperwork, office visits or delivery fees, and inclusive benefits such as free fuel and parking.

As the UAE’s mobility needs continue to evolve, Udrive will focus on deeper coverage, stronger fleet variety, and partnerships that improve access to flexible transport across the country. The company’s growth strategy is centred on making shared mobility easier to use, more widely available, and more relevant to how residents move across cities every day.

The expanded Udrive network is now live on the app. Customers can open the map, find a nearby car, choose the rental option that fits their journey and start driving in minutes.

For much of the past decade, GCC banks operated in an environment defined by strong liquidity, rapid credit expansion and relatively stable macroeconomic conditions. Supported by high oil revenues and ambitious national growth agendas, the region’s banking sector became synonymous with resilience, scale and sustained growth.

That resilience has been tested in recent months and, so far, the sector has responded well. Recent banking data published by the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) and the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) suggests that customer deposits have continued to grow despite heightened regional uncertainty.

Customer deposits increased by 17% year-on-year as of April 2026, and 2% from February to April 2026 in the UAE, while in Saudi Arabia, the growth in deposits was 11% year-on-year as of April 2026 and 2% from February to April 2026 , reinforcing both markets’ positions as regional safe havens for capital. Growth in monetary aggregates and non-resident deposits further suggests that regional and international investors continue to view GCC banking systems as stable, well-capitalized and resilient.

Importantly, there is little evidence so far of the capital flight or systemic liquidity pressures that some observers initially feared. Instead, the data suggests that the UAE and Saudi Arabia continue to play an important role as regional safe havens for capital, supported by strong banking fundamentals, prudent regulation and proactive central bank intervention.

Central banks have also played an important role. Proactive interventions helped preserve liquidity, support credit expansion and provide targeted relief to sectors facing short-term disruption. In the UAE, banks were able to extend working capital facilities and restructure short-term obligations for fundamentally healthy businesses, helping bridge temporary cash-flow pressures while maintaining confidence across the financial system.

As a result, resilience is no longer simply a measure of capital strength. It has become a strategic capability that underpins the sector’s ability to navigate an increasingly complex operating environment.

However, what is clearer than ever before is that the operating environment around banks is changing rapidly—and as a result, so is the role of the CRO.

The recent regional conflict accelerated that realization. Traditional stress-testing models were largely designed around financial shocks such as market volatility, liquidity tightening, and credit deterioration. What many institutions are now confronting is a far broader challenge, where geopolitical tensions, cyber threats, operational resilience, and credit risk can all influence one another simultaneously.
Across the GCC, this has prompted some banks to reassess whether existing business continuity and resilience frameworks are sufficiently equipped for a far more interconnected risk landscape.

This is particularly relevant in a region where regulatory frameworks have prioritized sovereignty, local data residency, and operational control. Recent events have also created an opportunity for institutions to reassess how these strengths can be balanced with greater operational flexibility and diversification, e.g., for digital data storage.

At the same time, a second structural shift is unfolding more quietly beneath the surface.

According to analysis from FTI Consulting, GCC banks originated close to $1 trillion in new lending between 2020 and 2025 across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Much of this growth took place during a prolonged low-interest rate environment and elevated liquidity conditions, meaning many portfolios, particularly across real estate and mortgage lending, have not yet been tested through a full economic stress cycle.

That could create a more complex operating backdrop for the years ahead.
For banks, the longer-term risk is not simply operational disruption. While business continuity and cybersecurity remain critical priorities, credit risk remains equally important. If short-term disruption were to evolve into a prolonged economic slowdown, pressure could emerge across borrower segments and asset classes, particularly in sectors that have benefited from strong credit expansion in recent years. In certain scenarios, a meaningful correction in real estate markets would have implications not only for borrowers but also for portfolio performance and risk provisioning across the banking sector.

This is precisely the type of forward-looking scenario that CROs must now anticipate, rather than simply respond to.

Modern CROs are increasingly expected to balance resilience, growth, operational continuity and profitability simultaneously, while helping institutions navigate a far more dynamic and interconnected operating environment. More importantly, the CRO can no longer afford to be purely backward-looking.

The institutions likely to outperform over the next decade will be those capable of identifying disruption early, adapting faster and embedding risk intelligence directly into strategic decision-making.

That requires a fundamentally different approach to risk management. One built around predictive intelligence, integrated scenario planning, dynamic stress testing and real-time decision-making.

Artificial intelligence and advanced analytics are becoming increasingly important in that transition.

Some leading regional banks are already investing in AI-enabled underwriting, early-warning systems and advanced collections capabilities that allow them to identify stress signals earlier and make more sophisticated portfolio decisions in real time. Others, however, continue to rely on fragmented legacy systems, manual workflows and reactive operating models.

That gap may become increasingly important during periods of disruption. Institutions that can identify emerging stress earlier, underwrite more effectively and anticipate portfolio deterioration before competitors will inevitably benefit from lower risk costs and stronger resilience outcomes.

Because in this new environment, resilience itself is becoming a competitive advantage.

The banks most likely to succeed will not necessarily be the largest or most conservative institutions. They will be the organizations capable of integrating risk more directly into strategic decision-making, modernizing operational infrastructure and responding dynamically to an increasingly volatile external environment.

The broader lesson for the sector is clear.

The GCC banking industry is entering a new era where resilience can no longer be measured purely through capital strength or regulatory compliance. Increasingly, resilience will be defined by adaptability and the ability to proactively anticipate interconnected geopolitical, operational, technological and economic disruption in real time.

The UAE entered this space differently.

Digital payments were already widely used. Contactless behaviour was established. Consumers were comfortable using banking apps and wallets for daily transactions. The starting challenge was not introducing digital payments – it was making account-to-account payments practical enough to become part of everyday behaviour.

That distinction shapes many of the decisions behind Aani.

Aani was developed as part of the UAE’s Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FIT) Programme to enable instant account-to-account payments across banks, exchange houses, fintechs, and wallets through a common national infrastructure.

Today, more than 12.5 million users and 700 thousand merchants and SMEs are enrolled on Aani, through over 74 licensed financial institutions across the country.

Those numbers show reach, but reach alone does not create habitual usage.

People do not change payment behaviour because infrastructure exists. They change behaviour when the alternative becomes easier, faster, or more reliable within everyday situations. That is where account-to-account payments become more interesting.

One of the clearest examples is proxy-based transfers using mobile numbers. Users no longer need to exchange lengthy account details to send money. In April 2026, over 25,000 transfers were executed daily, just using mobile numbers. The behaviour itself is simple, but reducing friction at that level matters. Small reductions in effort often determine whether a payment method becomes occasional or routine.

The same applies on the merchant side.

For businesses, account-to-account payments create an additional way to accept digital payments, where money can be immediately transferred to the merchant’s bank account, simply using a QR code payment or sending a request to pay to the customer.  As merchant acceptance expands across the UAE, usage is gradually extending beyond person-to-person transfers into day-to-day commercial activity.

Most merchants and sole proprietors across the UAE are expected to accept Aani payments.

This shift is still developing, but it reflects a broader movement toward payment experiences that are immediate, simpler to initiate, and more closely connected to existing banking relationships.

Scale also depends heavily on ease of usage and reliability.

Consumers rarely adopt new payment behaviour because a standalone application exists. Usage grows when payment capabilities are integrated into tools people already use regularly. Aani services are available through mobile apps provided by their participating financial institutions, as well as through the Aani application itself, which means users can access instant payments within their existing banking apps rather than learning entirely new payment flows.

Achieving that familiarity required to reduce behavioural resistance is a key target that we keep in mind when developing any new product feature. Building a national payment capability is not only a technical exercise. It requires coordination across customer experience, operational readiness, dispute handling, fraud controls, onboarding journeys, and merchant acceptance. These are just some of the aspects that contribute to enhance the user experience and repeated usage of the payment scheme.

Another critical item is to ensure user experience consistency, across the various players in the ecosystem: while the infrastructure may be centralised, the customer experience is distributed across many institutions and channels.

That coordination becomes more important as payment use cases expand.

Current and upcoming functionalities will shape different expectations of the financial institutions and their end customers, being individuals or corporates, who are part of the ecosystem.

They will not just expect round the clock availability of services and speed, but also ease of usage, convenience, seamless experience, low cost of transactions and 

The harder measure of success is not whether transfers can happen in seconds. The infrastructure already allows that. The more difficult task is becoming efficient and seamless enough that the behaviour repeats without conscious effort. That is usually when payment systems become part of daily life rather than simply another available option.

By Raj Kamal

I have spent the better part of two decades in payments. I have watched the industry move from cash to card, from card to mobile wallets, from domestic rails to real-time systems. And I can say with some confidence that what happened quietly in 2025 belongs in the same conversation as those transitions. The difference is that this one was mostly invisible to the people who usually lead that conversation.

The Numbers Deserve Context

Before we get too far, there is a legitimate caveat worth addressing upfront. Not all of that $33 trillion represents the kind of payment activity you might imagine, a supplier invoice settled in Dubai, a remittance sent from a worker in Sharjah to a family in Karachi. A McKinsey and Artemis Analytics report from early 2026 stripped out trading activity, DeFi cycling, and internal fund shuffling and found roughly $390 billion in what they called “genuine end-user payments.” That figure, they noted, more than doubled from 2024.

So the honest version of the story is this: even on the most conservative read, genuine stablecoin payment activity doubled in a single year. And on the broader rails measure, stablecoins have now outscaled the world’s two largest card networks. Both of those things are true simultaneously. The volume growth is also not speculative froth. It is coming from businesses.

An EY-Parthenon survey of 350 corporate and financial institution executives found that 62% of current stablecoin users are using them specifically to pay suppliers. Ship brokers. Steel traders. Import-export businesses. These are treasury teams who found a faster, cheaper way to move money across borders and adopted it without waiting for permission from the mainstream financial narrative.

Why It Happened Quietly

Part of the answer is timing. The growth of stablecoin payment infrastructure coincided almost perfectly with a period of intense negative sentiment around cryptocurrency broadly. Bitcoin volatility, exchange collapses, regulatory battles in the United States, all of it generated enormous noise. Underneath that noise, a parallel financial infrastructure was being quietly assembled.

The other part of the answer is that stablecoins solved problems that the payments industry had been struggling with for years. Cross-border payments through correspondent banking networks are slow, opaque, and expensive. A typical international B2B transfer can take two to three days and lose 3-6% to fees and foreign exchange costs. Stablecoins settle in seconds, operate 24/7, and carry transaction costs that are a fraction of the traditional alternative. When you frame it that way, the adoption curve makes complete sense.

The incumbents noticed. Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge for $1.1 billion and launched stablecoin payment acceptance across more than 100 countries. Mastercard acquired BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure firm, in March 2026. Visa settled $4.5 billion annually in stablecoins as of January 2026 and is integrating USDC into its core settlement operations. These companies are not making billion-dollar bets on a trend they expect to reverse.

The UAE Is Not Playing Catch-Up

This is where it gets specifically relevant for this region, and where I would push back on anyone who assumes the Middle East is watching from a distance.
The UAE has spent the last two years building regulated stablecoin infrastructure with a seriousness that few jurisdictions globally can match. The Central Bank of the UAE issued its Payment Token Services Regulation in mid-2024, establishing a comprehensive framework requiring 100% reserve backing for payment tokens and creating clear licensing pathways. This is not a sandbox experiment. It is a formal financial regulatory structure.

In October 2024, AE Coin became the first fully licensed AED-pegged stablecoin, issued through a partnership with Al Maryah Community Bank. In January 2026, the CBUAE registered USDU, the country’s first USD-backed stablecoin, with reserves held onshore at Emirates NBD, Mashreq, and Mbank. In December 2025, ADNOC Distribution signed an agreement to accept AE Coin across nearly 980 service stations across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. That is one of the largest retail deployments of a regulated payment token anywhere in the world.

At the same time, the UAE’s domestic payment systems processed more than AED 20 trillion in transfers in just the first ten months of 2025. The country is consistently among the world’s largest sources of outbound remittances, with a workforce that sends money to families across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Africa every month. The friction in that system is exactly what stablecoin rails are designed to remove.

What Payments Veterans Should Take From This

I am not suggesting that traditional payment rails are disappearing. Visa and Mastercard are actively integrating stablecoins rather than being displaced by them, which is itself a significant signal about where the industry is heading. The more important observation is about infrastructure decisions being made right now, in this decade, that will determine which payment corridors are competitive in the next one.

The UAE’s approach, regulated frameworks, onshore reserve requirements, licensed issuers, interoperability with the Digital Dirham, is a serious attempt to capture a structural moment rather than react to it. Stablecoin transactions by value are projected to exceed $50 trillion in transaction volume in 2026 alone. Five to ten percent of cross-border payments globally are expected to run on stablecoin rails by the end of the decade.

The shift happened while people were arguing about whether crypto was real.

About the Author:
Raj Kamal is Founder and CEO of TransFi, a cross-border payments and stablecoin settlement infrastructure company that has processed over $1 billion in payment volume across Asia, MENA, Africa, and Latin America.

At a time when artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping economies, industries, and education systems, the UAE is accelerating its ambition to become a global AI hub. Against this backdrop, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) Dubai Campus has unveiled NEXORA, a next-generation artificial intelligence lab designed to equip students with applied, real-world AI capabilities.

The launch comes as the UAE’s AI market is valued at over USD 3.47 billion and is projected to grow at nearly 44% annually through 2030, with AI expected to contribute up to 14% of the country’s GDP. At the same time, the country is advancing its talent agenda, with artificial intelligence being introduced into school curricula from the 2025–2026 academic year, alongside increasing employer demand for AI and data-driven skills.

NEXORA has been developed as an integrated AI environment where students move from ideation to development and deployment within a single platform. Structured across dedicated zones for ideation, learning, development, and experience, the lab enables users to conceptualise solutions, build prototypes, test applications, and demonstrate outcomes in real-world scenarios.

Commenting on the launch, Dr. S. Sudhindra, Pro Vice Chancellor of MAHE Dubai, said: “The conversation around artificial intelligence has moved from awareness to application. The real differentiator today is not access to tools, but the ability to apply them in meaningful, domain-specific contexts. With NEXORA, we are creating an environment where students are not just exposed to AI concepts, but are expected to build, test, and deploy solutions that reflect real industry challenges. This is essential to developing talent that is relevant from day one.”

A key highlight of the launch was the demonstration of AI applications developed entirely by students, showcasing practical use cases across industries. These included interactive virtual avatars for visitor engagement, real-time facial recognition systems operating on edge devices to ensure data privacy, and intelligent retail inventory solutions designed to improve on-shelf availability and operational efficiency. Additional innovations such as sentiment analysis kiosks, voice-based biometric systems, and interactive learning platforms further demonstrated how AI can be applied across customer experience, retail, and enterprise environments.

The lab is supported by advanced infrastructure, including high-performance computing systems for large-scale model development, edge AI platforms for real-time intelligence, and cloud-integrated environments for scalable experimentation. Industry-standard frameworks and tools are embedded across the ecosystem, ensuring alignment with enterprise technology environments. Looking ahead, MAHE Dubai also plans to introduce a dedicated quantum computing terminal, enabling exploration of next-generation computing and the convergence of AI and quantum technologies.

Speaking on the significance of the initiative, Dr. Balamurugan Balusamy, Dean and Professor at the School of Engineering and IT, MAHE Dubai, added: “AI cannot be taught effectively in isolation from its application. What differentiates NEXORA is the focus on building systems. Students are working with real data, real constraints, and real use cases, which fundamentally changes how they understand and apply AI. This shift from theoretical learning to applied capability is what will define the next generation of technology professionals.”

Designed as a cross-disciplinary initiative, NEXORA extends beyond engineering to include management, health sciences, media, and other academic domains, reflecting the growing role of AI as a foundational capability across sectors. The lab is also expected to drive research, industry collaboration, and skill development through faculty-led projects, partnerships, and specialised training programmes.

With the launch of NEXORA, MAHE Dubai strengthens its contribution to the UAE’s innovation ecosystem, supporting the development of talent equipped to navigate and shape an AI-driven future. As artificial intelligence continues to reshape how industries operate and compete, initiatives like NEXORA serve as critical platforms for developing the talent, research, and real-world capabilities needed to power the next phase of growth.

SunTec Business Solutions and Mashreq are said to extend their long-standing compliance partnership into electronic invoicing as the institution prepares for the UAE’s mandatory e-invoicing requirements. This collaboration is built on seven years of joint work on Value Added Tax (VAT) compliance and positions the bank to meet the Federal Tax Authority’s (FTA) e-invoicing deadlines.

The UAE’s e-invoicing mandate, established under Ministerial Decisions No. 243 and No. 244 of 2025, requires businesses to issue structured, machine-readable XML invoices transmitted in near real time to the FTA through an Accredited Service Provider (ASP). Large institutions with annual revenues equal to or exceeding AED 50 million must be live by January 1, 2027, with ASP appointment required no later than July 31, 2026. For UAE banks operating across thousands of daily B2B transactions spanning standard-rated fees, exempt interest, and out-of-scope for VAT, the compliance challenge is among the most technically complex in any sector.

“For seven years, SunTec has been the compliance backbone for leading UAE financial institutions navigating an evolving tax landscape.

As the UAE transitions to e-invoicing, banks will need to operate in a hybrid environment where customers at different stages of adoption must be supported—ranging from conventional invoicing processes to real-time exchanges through ASPs. This introduces new operational considerations, as institutions must ensure seamless interoperability across these models. At the same time, e-invoicing creates a network effect, connecting banks, businesses, and service providers in a standardized ecosystem. This positions banks to move beyond compliance, enabling them to embed value-added services such as financing, reconciliation, and cash flow insights directly into invoicing workflows.

SunTec Xelerate e-Invoicing is built to integrate with existing banking and enterprise systems, allowing institutions to participate in real-time invoice validation and transmission without disrupting their core infrastructure. As an approved ASP and a certified Peppol access point, SunTec enables compliant connectivity within the UAE’s decentralized continuous transaction control and exchange (DCTCE) model, supporting secure and standardized invoice flows across the ecosystem.

The company’s Dubai-registered entity, SunTec (Xelerate) Business Solutions DMCC, was approved by the UAE’s Ministry of Finance as an official e-invoicing ASP following completion of all technical and regulatory requirements, including Peppol Access Point certification. The company maintains regional headquarters at Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai, with dedicated implementation and support teams serving UAE financial institutions.

Under the UAE’s phased implementation schedule, the pilot program opens on July 1, 2026, for a selected Taxpayer Working Group. Voluntary adoption is available to all businesses from the same date. Mandatory compliance for large taxpayers follows on January 1, 2027, with all remaining VAT-registered businesses required to comply by July 1, 2027. Non-compliance carries penalties of AED 5,000 per month, per-document fines, and daily charges for unreported system failures.

The Forrester report, which lists 42 vendors, provides financial institutions with an overview of notable vendors and the key market dynamics shaping the rapidly evolving financial crime management (FCM) market, including fraud and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions.

MOZN was listed in the report with a geographic focus on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions, and an industry focus on financial services, government, and insurance. The recognition underscores the company’s sustained investment in AI-driven innovation and its focus on delivering scalable, future-ready financial crime solutions tailored to high-growth and complex regulatory markets.

At the center of this recognition is FOCAL, MOZN’s end-to-end financial crime management platform. Built on a unified FRAML (Fraud + AML) architecture, FOCAL leverages agentic AI to automate data integration, accelerate risk-scoring, and streamline alert triage, enhancing investigator productivity while preserving human judgment. The platform offers flexible deployment options, allowing organizations to modernize their operations in a way that aligns with their technical and regulatory needs.

“MOZN’s inclusion in Forrester’s report reflects the progress we have made in building technology that truly transforms how institutions combat financial crime,” said Dr. Mohammed Alhussein, Founder and CEO of MOZN. “As Saudi Arabia designates 2026 as the Year of Artificial Intelligence, it reinforces the Kingdom’s ambition to lead in shaping the future of AI globally. At MOZN, we are proud to contribute to this vision by engineering AI-native platforms that make financial crime prevention more proactive, precise, and effective. This milestone reflects both the momentum of our mission and the growing global relevance of technology built in the region.”

By combining deep regional expertise with global technology standards, MOZN continues to advance its purpose of empowering organizations with intelligence that matters. The company remains committed to delivering AI-native solutions purpose-built for the world’s most regulated and knowledge-intensive sectors, enabling institutions to operate with greater clarity, confidence, and control. As demand for advanced AI-driven capabilities accelerates worldwide, MOZN is expanding its global footprint, supporting organizations as they navigate an increasingly complex financial crime landscape.

Across the GCC, national development agendas increasingly position artificial intelligence as a cornerstone of economic diversification. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, the UAE’s National AI Strategy 2031, and Qatar’s national innovation roadmap all highlight AI as a critical driver of future growth. According to McKinsey, AI adoption has already reached around 84 percent among organisations in the GCC, with the technology projected to generate up to $320 billion in economic value for the Middle East by 2030. As adoption accelerates across industries, regulatory compliance is becoming a key factor that determines whether AI initiatives move beyond ambition to achieve sustainable scale.

Shaffra, an AI research and applications company building autonomous AI teams for enterprises and governments, sees six clear shifts reshaping how companies operate.

1. Regulation is accelerating adoption in high-stakes sectors

Government entities, financial services, telecom, aviation, and large semi-government organisations are moving fastest. These sectors operate at scale, face strict efficiency mandates, and function under constant regulatory oversight. Healthcare and energy are advancing more cautiously due to safety and data sensitivity. In many cases, the more regulated the industry, the faster AI deployment progresses. However, rapid scaling also exposes governance weaknesses, particularly where documentation, ownership, and oversight mechanisms are underdeveloped.

2. Compliance is prerequisite for scale

Over the past year, 88% of Middle East CEOs have reported generative AI uptake. Today, organisations increasingly require audit trails, explainability, clear data lineage and residency controls, defined performance thresholds, and enforceable human oversight mechanisms. With one in four Middle East consumers citing privacy as a primary concern, compliance is being treated as a post-deployment validation exercise; it is a structural requirement for scaling AI responsibly.

3. Sovereign AI and data residency are shaping architecture

AI governance in the GCC is being influenced less by standalone AI laws and more by data protection and cybersecurity frameworks. The UAE’s federal data protection law, Saudi Arabia’s PDPL under SDAIA, and Oman’s PDPL reinforce lawful processing and cross-border controls. In highly regulated sectors such as banking, healthcare, energy, and telecommunications, data residency and local control over models are strategic imperatives. Sovereign AI is evolving from a policy ambition into an operational requirement affecting infrastructure, vendor selection, and system design.

4. Human accountability is being reasserted

When organisations deploy AI without defining who owns the decision, when human escalation is required, and what the system is permitted or restricted from doing, they create either over-reliance or under-utilisation. Without clearly defined ownership and documented review controls, accountability weakens and regulatory exposure increases.

For instance, DIFC reinforces responsible AI use in personal data processing. High-impact decisions involving legal standing, fraud, employment, healthcare guidance, or public sector determinations that affect citizens need to involve human oversight, while AI handles speed, consistency, and automation of repetitive tasks. High-impact decisions should involve accountable human oversight.

5. Governance maturity slows deployment activity

Many organisations are AI-active but still developing governance maturity. Common governance gaps are structural rather than technical. Multiple pilots often run in parallel, tool adoption is fragmented, and accountability is split across IT, legal, risk, and business functions. Growing enterprises often lack a central AI governance owner, a comprehensive use-case inventory, consistent vendor and model risk assessment, and formal escalation protocols. Policies may exist at the board level, yet it is not consistently embedded into day-to-day operations. Addressing this gap requires governance to be built into workflows from the outset.

6. Continuous auditing is discipline

Studies indicate that a majority of ML models degrade over time, through model drift, hidden bias, or misuse vulnerabilities. Initial audits frequently reveal undocumented use cases, weak access segmentation, insufficient logging, and unclear review protocols. Effective governance requires compliance with international and local data residency rules, structured risk tiering, data lineage validation, access controls, bias testing, performance benchmarking, and defined incident response procedures. High-impact systems warrant quarterly reviews supported by continuous monitoring, while lower-risk applications still require periodic reassessment. Governance is increasingly measured through evidence rather than policy statements. Boards are asking for dashboards, logs, and audit artefacts — not policy PDFs.

Governance is being considered as part of AI infrastructure. Compliance frameworks are evolving into operational architecture embedded within systems, workflows, and accountability models. The organisations that will lead in the GCC are those that design governance at the same time they design capability, ensuring AI scales with discipline rather than risk.

RØDE has today announced a major free firmware update across its premium wireless range, with Wireless GO (Gen 3) and Wireless PRO now boasting Direct Connect, a powerful capability that allows users to connect directly to iOS devices without the need for a physical receiver.

Direct Connect, first introduced with Wireless Micro, enables Wireless GO (Gen 3) and Wireless PRO transmitters to pair with iPhones via Bluetooth® using the RØDE Capture app. This eliminates the need for any additional hardware or accessories, dramatically streamlining mobile setups while preserving the broadcast-quality audio both wireless systems are known for.

“We’ve already witnessed the incredible impact Direct Connect has had on creators using the Wireless Micro,” said Damien Wilson, CEO of RØDE. “Since launch, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, allowing creators more flexibility and versatility than ever before. It’s our duty as pioneers of the ultra-compact wireless microphone category to extend true wireless freedom to as many creators as possible. With Direct Connect now available on more RØDE systems, we’re delivering exactly that.”

With Direct Connect now available across more of the wireless range, creators can continue to record in merged or split modes through the RØDE Capture app. In merged mode, audio from both transmitters is combined into a single, ready-to-publish stereo track. In split mode, each transmitter is recorded to a separate channel for greater flexibility in post-production. In-app output gain control also makes it easy to adjust recording levels on the fly for consistently balanced results.
This powerful new functionality comes at no extra cost to users and, following recent price drops of 33% for Wireless GO (Gen 3) and 25% for Wireless PRO, offers even greater value for creators looking to simplify their mobile setups without sacrificing sound quality.

Wireless GO (Gen 3)

The third generation of the iconic Wireless GO, Wireless GO (Gen 3) builds on the success of the world’s most popular wireless microphone platform, delivering every feature and convenience a creator could possibly need while keeping the intuitive grab-and-go operation the range is known for. Powered by RØDE’s state-of-the-art Series IV 2.4GHz digital transmission and compatible with any Series IV device, it delivers pristine, reliable wireless audio, with advanced features like 32-bit float on-board recording, intelligent GainAssist for consistently balanced levels and generous 32GB internal storage for recording audio directly to the transmitters.
With Direct Connect now on board, Wireless GO (Gen 3) becomes an even more streamlined solution for mobile creators, offering a cleaner rig and faster setup while maintaining the professional sound expected from RØDE. Available in an array of colours, it also gives creators the freedom to personalise their on-camera presence to suit their style.

Wireless PRO

Designed for filmmakers and professional creators who require maximum capability in a compact form, Wireless PRO is the most powerful system in RØDE’s wireless range, delivering an unrivalled suite of features not found in any other compact microphone in its class. Building on the impressive core performance and capabilities of the Wireless GO (Gen 3), Wireless PRO adds timecode sync for quick-and-easy audio sync in post-production and an extended 260m line-of-sight range for reliable audio over longer distances.

Compatible with the full RØDE Series IV ecosystem, including RØDECaster Pro II, RØDECaster Duo and RØDECaster Video, Wireless PRO is built for serious productions, now with the added convenience of Direct Connect for faster mobile capture when needed.

RØDE’s Wireless GO (Gen 3) and Wireless PRO ship worldwide. The Wireless GO (Gen 3) is available to purchase in a range of vibrant colours for US$199, while the Wireless PRO can be purchased for US$299.

Direct Connect is available now on the RØDE Capture app via a free firmware update.