MENA’s monetary expertise (FinTech) scene is approaching the longer term with optimism, regardless of a variety of challenges exacerbated by present geopolitical uncertainty. The UAE and Saudi Arabia lead the regional panorama, in line with a brand new report from Arthur D. Little.
What was as soon as a distinct segment phase inside the monetary providers {industry} is not any extra: FinTech is now a thriving and dynamic sector stuffed with start-ups, scale-ups, personal equity-backed companies, company ventures, and initiatives from incumbent gamers resembling massive banks.
In its report, titled ‘The Next Phase of MENA FinTech Growth’, Arthur D. Little examines the expansion FinTech has undergone within the Center East and North Africa (MENA), concluding that the numbers converse for themselves. The market dimension has grown strongly, financing within the sector has boomed, regulation has advanced, and {industry} gamers have develop into extra professionalised.
“Propelled by the digitisation of commerce and daily life, the rise of emerging technologies, customer appetite for round-the-clock convenience, and progressive regulation, financial technology has evolved from a nascent industry into an established field,” stated Arjun Singh, Companion and International Head of Monetary Providers at Arthur D. Little.
“In the Middle East, FinTech has built strong structural foundations over the past decade, including regulatory depth, an investor track record, and accelerating adoption of solutions and services.”
Supply: Arthur D. Little, Fintech Tuesdays
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That progress trajectory has been supported by rising funding within the sector. In 2025 alone, enterprise capital funding in MENA reached $3.8 billion. Excessive-profile FinTech transactions included Rain, a crypto-asset alternate, which raised $58 million in Sequence B funding; Hala, an embedded finance FinTech, which raised $157 million in Sequence B funding; and Tabby, a monetary providers and procuring app, which secured $160 million in Sequence E funding.
The report notes that, with its massive variety of standout offers, the Center East has bucked the worldwide development, the place FinTech funding stays cautious amid rising regulatory expectations. The authors do level to 1 space of warning, nevertheless: the MENA panorama has a bifurcated funding setting, with seen energy on the prime and capital strain throughout a lot of the broader ecosystem.
The UAE and KSA lead
Round 60% of respondents recognized the UAE because the market almost certainly to guide FinTech innovation over the following three years, and practically half rated the nation’s regulatory panorama positively.
Saudi Arabia’s FinTech sector additionally obtained plaudits from the respondents, with 31% of entrepreneurs and founders backing the Kingdom to guide on innovation.
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Supply: Arthur D. Little, Fintech Tuesdays
Alternative areasArthur D. Little’s report identifies six structural alternative areas:
SME financing: Conventional banks underserve small and medium-sized enterprises, creating house for FinTechs providing different credit score scoring, embedded lending, and quicker entry to working capital.
Cross-border funds: Options that scale back value, improve pace, and leverage digital rails are high-impact alternatives.
Digital wallets: Digital wallets are a leapfrog expertise that may speed up monetary inclusion and help embedded finance fashions.
Islamic finance: Digital-first, Shariah-compliant merchandise are under-developed relative to demand, presenting sturdy alternatives throughout financial savings, lending, and wealth administration.
Funds evolution: Funds are the quickest Web2-Web3 convergence space, with stablecoins and blockchain infrastructure gaining traction.
Actual property: Property tech, tokenization, and fractional possession are a significant disruption alternative in MENA’s large actual property market.
The outlook
The Center East’s FinTech group is approaching the longer term with optimism, stated the report. The survey’s findings point out that total sentiment is optimistic: three-quarters of respondents rated their optimism at 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale, and 77% shared the idea that the FinTech {industry} is stronger now than it was 12 months in the past.
But that optimism is tempered by a measure of realism. Confidence in particular mechanisms stays low: policymaker-industry dialogue averaged simply 2.3 out of 5, and solely one-third of respondents rated bank-FinTech partnerships nearly as good or higher.
Supply: Arthur D. Little, Fintech Tuesdays
There’s important operational friction too: 73% of survey members reported that banks weren’t adapting quick sufficient, with over 70% going through capital-raising difficulties previously 12 months, and 78% citing lack of cross-border regulatory harmonisation as a barrier.
In response to Singh, this backdrop of optimism and development signifies that MENA’s FinTech sector is well-placed to climate the present geopolitical disaster. “Regional turbulence may accentuate existing challenges, but the industry trajectory will remain intact.”
Mehdi Letaief, Principal at Arthur D. Little, added: “The data is clear: this ecosystem has built something real over the past decade. The task now is to protect what has been built, keep the collaboration between regulators, banks, and FinTechs moving, and use the current moment to demonstrate that structural depth holds under pressure – not just in favorable conditions.”
