The clouds take a hit (TWIF - MENA 05/03)

Dubai—An AWS data centre in the UAE was struck by an unidentified object over the weekend, triggering service outages that affected many financial companies from Sunday through to Monday–Tuesday and contributing to regional market turbulence. Kuwait’s Capital Markets Authority suspended trading on its stock exchange for two days, while authorities in the UAE closed trading in Dubai and Abu Dhabi for three days before reopening today. The Dubai Financial Market General Index closed down 4.7%, its steepest single‑day drop since mid‑2022, and Abu Dhabi equities ended the day down 2% after falling as much as 3.6% earlier in the session.

"Marhaba, fintech friends ☮️ Reporting from Dubai - safe, with a lot of sound. It is quite the week in this corner of the world," wrote Maria Najjar in this week’s This Week in Fintech MENA dispatch. "Suddenly, all we could hear was the sound of something unfamiliar, unlikely, unbelievable to the city’s 4 million residents and then… silence."

Context and regional fintech movements

Beyond immediate disruptions to cloud services and markets, the week brought a raft of financing, partnerships and regulatory moves across the Middle East and North Africa fintech scene:

• Fundraises: Morocco’s WafR closed a $4 million oversubscribed seed round co‑led by LoftyInc Capital, Attijariwafa Ventures and Almada Ventures. UAE proptech Takeem received an investment from REACH, an accelerator created by Second Century Ventures, the investment arm of the US National Association of Realtors. Bahrain’s Foras AI increased its stake in crowdfunding platform Beban as the latter enters the Egyptian market.
• Funds and M&A: Switzerland’s CV VC merged with Abu Dhabi‑based accelerator Elixir. Shorooq’s Presight Fund I invested in five AI start‑ups: NodeShift, Candid, Hebbia, Blue and Crunched.
• Partnerships and product launches: Mastercard and Google expanded their partnership to increase Google Pay usage across Saudi Arabia. Dubai Chambers partnered with Mamo, Qashio, Pemo and Vault to broaden SME access to alternative and digital banking services. Antier launched a VARA‑compliant white label cryptocurrency exchange platform for institutions entering regulated digital‑asset markets in MENA. Jazeera Airways introduced a Fly Now, Pay Later option; MoneyHash launched in Iraq in partnership with local payments provider Wayl; and UAE‑based proptech Rewa rolled out a digital payment and rewards app across the Emirates.
• Cloud and infrastructure: The Central Bank of the UAE partnered with Core42 to build a dedicated sovereign cloud service infrastructure for the financial sector, a move made more salient by the reported strike on an AWS facility.
• Licensing and regulation: Tunisia’s central bank licensed Ooredoo Fintech to launch walletii. Dubai’s VARA granted ShipFinex in‑principle approval for a Broker‑Dealer license for maritime asset tokenization. The UAE Ministry of Finance published Electronic Invoicing Guidelines ahead of a national e‑invoicing rollout. The Central Bank of Oman introduced new regulation governing BNPL, and the Central Bank of the UAE issued responsible AI guidelines for licensed financial institutions.

Outlook

Market participants and fintech operators are adopting a wait‑and‑see stance as cloud outages and regional air defences continue to be monitored. Short‑term volatility—highlighted by suspended trading in Kuwait and multi‑day market closures in the UAE—has already fed through to index losses, and uncertainty remains over potential further disruptions to infrastructure and services. For now, New‑era cloud resiliency, sovereign infrastructure projects like the Core42 partnership, and contingency planning for mission‑critical financial services look set to move higher on corporate and regulator agendas across MENA.