The Innovators 2026: Middle East

The Middle East is poised to become the world’s fastest-growing fintech hub, with net revenue projected to grow by 35% annually through 2028, significantly outpacing the global average of 15% (McKinsey). This dramatic expansion is primarily driven by strategic government initiatives, such as Saudi Vision 2030 and UAE Vision 2031, that are accelerating the shift toward digital payments, embedded finance, and a fully cashless economy.

Innovation in the region is marked by a strong commitment to digital transformation. Key pillars of this transformation include delivering seamless, immediate financial services (Instant Service Delivery), establishing integrated systems that combine Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and super apps (Unified Platforms), and creating a supportive environment fueled by government backing, favorable regulation, a digitally native population, and a focus on broad financial inclusion.

The Middle Eastern financial sector is defined by extensive digital transformation, strategic partnerships, and the launch of pioneering fully digital banks. Leading institutions are actively adopting cutting-edge technology. For example, Mashreq uses sophisticated AI for financial orchestration, regulatory compliance, and instant digital service delivery. Acabes has streamlined the modern banking experience by unifying its super digital banking app, BaaS platform, and digital workflow automation into a single cohesive architecture.

The next wave of growth focuses on the large-scale expansion of AI capabilities and the development of new digital ecosystems. Mashreq’s 2026 Strategy aims to industrialize and scale agentic AI into an enterprise-grade “agent factory.” This initiative is designed to boost productivity, enhance the customer experience, and mitigate risk through automated, governed workflows. Acabes’ Future Ambition seeks to become a fintech leader by developing a “bank-as-a-lifestyle” ecosystem. This future platform will leverage Web3, Generative AI, and ‘Digital Assets-as-a-Service’ to deliver proactive, customer-centric banking solutions.

Mashreq

Mashreq announced multiple digital launches late last year and early this year, focused primarily on digital transformation and strategic partnerships to enhance the customer experience, streamline business processes, and expand the bank’s regional presence. These included advancements in instant digital service delivery, the application of sophisticated AI for complex financial orchestration, regulatory integration to simplify onboarding, the creation of unique co-branded digital products, and the pioneering launch of a fully digital bank in a new market.

“Mashreq’s 2026 ambition is to industrialize and scale agentic AI into a secure, enterprise-grade agent factory,” says Xi Liang, head of AI, “augmenting every department to enhance customer experience, reduce risk, and drive productivity, while enabling automated, prioritized, end-to-end banking workflows under strong governance, regulatory confidence, real-time oversight, and measurable business impact.”
Mashreq sees agentic AI as critical to its digital innovation trajectory.

Arab Bank – ACABES

Arab Bank – ACABES, the in-house technology-development arm of Arab Bank Group, modernized the banking experience for Arab Bank clients last year by integrating Reflect, its digital banking app; its banking as a service (BaaS) platform; and its automated digital workflow process into a unified platform architecture. Arab Bank also gradually integrated AI to enhance the bank’s digital marketing and social media management, customer insights, predictive risk management, and coding assistance.

“By deploying the bank’s core capabilities as modular services, we enabled faster integrations, real-time digital journeys, and seamless partner connectivity through BaaS,” says Eric Modave, deputy CEO and COO of Arab Bank and ACABES board chair. “The result was leaner operations, smarter decision-making, and an always-on, customer-centric banking experience, positioning Arab Bank and ACABES at the forefront of fintech innovation in the region.”

Moving forward, ACABES is positioning itself as a fintech leader by creating what it calls a “Bank-as-a-Lifestyle” ecosystem centered on Web3, generative AI, and “Digital Assets-as-a-Service” to deliver a proactive, customer-centric banking experience. 

Boubyan | User Experience and Value Propositions

Boubyan advanced its digital banking strategy in 2025 by launching Msa3ed, an AI assistant that made the bank an early regional adopter of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) for bilingual conversational banking. Globally, Boubyan’s UK digital bank, Nomo, was the first to offer residents of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries fully digital, Sharia-compliant UK banking and property financing. AI also significantly improved internal operational efficiency, reducing corporate risk assessment time from weeks to hours. This demonstrates a clear focus on compelling user experience and strong value propositions.

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) | Real-Time Digital Property Transactions – API-Based Payment Solutions

FAB transformed property payments from a multiday administrative process into a real-time digital event by integrating the bank’s eAccess application programming interface (API) directly with government regulators such as the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC). The core innovation is the direct API link between the bank and the regulator. In late 2025, this was expanded to include the National Housing Loans platform, enabling real-time mortgage validation against ADREC’s property data. FAB is unique in successfully integrating its payment rails directly into a national government’s property registry, effectively turning a complex legal transaction into a simple API call and setting a global benchmark for the “internet of property.”

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB)|FAB’s Deep-Tier Supply Chain Financing Solution

Launched in August 2025, this is the region’s first Deep-Tier Supply Chain Financing (DTSCF) solution, revolutionizing trade finance tracking by providing real-time, end-to-end visibility across complex, multitier supply chains. The single digital platform enables corporations and suppliers to monitor key aspects: invoice status, financing utilization, supplier participation, and payment flows. Leveraging advanced digital workflows, FAB created a transparent, auditable, and highly scalable tracking experience that significantly reduces operational friction, enhances control, and strengthens supply chain resilience. Crucially, the platform uses distributed ledger technology to issue an irrevocable payment undertaking from the anchor buyer.

Kuwait Finance House | Fahad AI Avatar

Fahad, Kuwait’s first AI-powered virtual employee, is a hyper-realistic AI video avatar—not a traditional chatbot. Launched in June 2025, Fahad’s capabilities are continuously expanded by Kuwait Finance House (KFH). Deployed at kiosks, Fahad provides real-time, humanlike assistance for branch tasks, shifting the model from transactional self-service to conversational, human-centric, “phygital” banking. KFH also significantly enhanced back-office operations by implementing speech analytics to convert all phone calls into searchable text, enabling real-time analysis of customer sentiment and tone and improving overall service quality.

Mashreq | Digital Mortgage Platform

Mashreq pioneered digital mortgage services in the UAE with the launch of its Digital Mortgage platform in the fourth quarter of 2025. The offering includes what the bank describes as the UAE’s first fully digital, instant online home loan pre-approval journey. The platform dramatically redefines mortgage origination by reducing decision-making time from days to minutes, leveraging same-day verification and an automated eligibility engine to deliver at the speed of a credit card approval. Building on this leadership, Mashreq introduced the UAE’s first fully digital home-loan pre-approval service in early this year.

Mashreq | Automated Customer Engagement Engine (ACEE)

Launched in the fourth quarter of 2025, ACEE is an agentic AI framework spanning corporate, retail, and private banking. It enables complex, high-value transaction orchestration beyond basic automation. In partnership with Personetics, Mashreq is the region’s first bank to embed a real-time, AI-driven financial-insights engine directly in its mobile app for personalized money management. The bank has strategically scaled AI beyond the traditional chatbot model to enhance retail self-service and corporate relationship management.

Mashreq |e&Mashreq NEO Credit Card launch

Launched in the first quarter of 2025, this offering was described by Mashreq as the region’s first fully embedded, SDK-enabled co-branded credit card, enabling seamless in-app onboarding within a telecom ecosystem via a banking-as-a-service architecture. The partnership with e& (formerly Etisalat) provides a fully digital portfolio and servicing experience including instant digital issuance, PIN generation, and real-time spending notifications. By incorporating facial recognition and shifting toward high-value niche cashback rewards, the initiative strengthens customer loyalty for both Mashreq and e&.

Mashreq | Mashreq Mobile Wealth Platform

In 2025, Mashreq transformed its Mobile Wealth Platform (within the NEO and UAE apps) from a simple trading interface into an intelligence-led wealth adviser. Key enhancements included launching NEO PLUS, a digital-first premium segment; partnering with Goldman Sachs Asset Management; and adding interactive wealth dashboards and AI-powered predictive insights. Crucially, a hybrid model for digital journeys was introduced, enabling users to seamlessly connect with a relationship manager for complex trades.

National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) | Digital Customer Onboarding

NBK’s digital customer onboarding, launched in 2025 as a key part of the NBK’s digital transformation, utilizes an agile delivery model that has undergone extensive testing. NBK became one of the first banks in Kuwait to introduce a fully digital onboarding journey powered by facial biometrics. This innovation enables customers to open accounts instantly and securely via a mobile device, completing identity verification, complying with know-your-customer requirements, and activating accounts entirely within the app—thus eliminating the need for branch visits and enhancing quality and security for end users.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) | QIB Mobile App

The QIB Mobile App, Qatar’s pioneering, fully integrated Islamic banking platform, utilizes AI to deliver personalized insights and end-to-end digital product journeys. With over 320 features, it offers instant pre-approved Islamic financing, cross-border transfers (including Visa+ and Unified Payments Interface to India), digital account onboarding, and instant credit card issuance. Key innovations like Fawran retail-to-corporate transfers, Mastercard Click to Pay, and Cash Pickup enhance the experience through AI analytics, tokenized payments, and optical character recognition (OCR). This enables customers to complete all banking tasks remotely in a single, secure session with reduced authentication steps. Recent additions in 2025 include the QIB Auto Marketplace and the Next Best Offer AI recommendation engine.

Qatar National Bank (QNB) | Mobile Banking Enhancements

QNB shifted its 2025–2026 mobile strategy from simple updates to embedded digital banking, focusing on scaling its digital ecosystem with AI-driven personalization, cross-border efficiency, and deeper integration for retail customers and small and midsize enterprises (SMEs). Key enhancements include a globally unique, branchless digital onboarding service with improved OCR, enabling instant account opening. The QNB Mobile app now supports new features like in-app motor insurance, Mastercard Click to Pay, and streamlined international registration. For SMEs, updates include Fawran integration and automated commercial registration workflows. QNB is strengthening AI-driven risk management as well as launching the mobile-first ezbank in Egypt.

RAKBANK | Skiply

Expanded in 2025, Skiply has become a benchmark for niche GCC digital platforms. RAKBANK says it is the first UAE central bank-regulated, bank-built platform to offer a fully in-app direct debit setup for automated recurring school fee collection across more than 400 institutions. Skiply is a super app for families, transforming fee payments into a comprehensive digital ecosystem that goes beyond a traditional banking tool. Parents can complete the entire re-enrollment journey—form submission, fee payment, and seat confirmation—all within the app. Skiply also pioneered the integration of an activities marketplace for seamless browsing, booking, and payment for after-school programs, with student-level tracking, all within a single, regulated application.

Saudi Awwal Bank (SAB) | Xperiment – Secure Disconnected Innovation & Fintech Collaboration Platform

The second-quarter 2025 launch of Xperiment introduced the first secure, fully disconnected experimentation platform within a Saudi-based bank. Xperiment enables controlled innovation by leveraging previously vetted fintech partners, high-quality synthetic data, and compliant, cloud-based integrated development environment workspaces—thereby ensuring that production systems and sensitive customer data remain unexposed. SAB uses this structured platform to rapidly test and discard unsuccessful ideas while seamlessly scaling successful innovations into its iCorp digital business-banking platform and SAB Mobile.

Saudi Awwal Bank (SAB)|Tokenized Islamic Repo

Saudi Awwal Bank said it executed the first blockchain-based Islamic repurchase agreement (repo) in August 2025, designed to address the complexity and delays encountered with traditional repos. In partnership with digital-asset infrastructure provider Oumla, SAB uses smart contracts and tokenized collateral to enable instant T+0 settlement and programmable Sharia compliance. The pilot has been integrated with Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol as part of the bank’s broader on-chain finance strategy.