These 4 Startups Are Powering Open Banking in the Middle East

These 4 Startups Are Powering Open Banking in the Middle East

Open banking is one of the top fintech trends to have swept the Middle East. The opportunity for open banking in the Middle East is in integrating financial services with technology in a region that boasts some of the highest smartphone and internet penetration rates in the world, but is still home to a financial services landscape largely ruled by incumbents.

Open banking in the Middle East has taken off amidst a proactive regulatory environment, and a robustly growing payments sector.

On the one hand, regulators in Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman are all cognisant of the opportunities in open banking. While Bahrain launched its Open Banking Framework in 2020, Saudi Arabia plans to go live with open banking by the first half of next year. The Dubai Financial Services Authority started providing an open banking licence in 2020 as well, while Oman has an Open Banking API Strategy in the pipeline.

Meanwhile, as paytech gains a foothold in the Middle East, 80% of payments practitioners in the Middle East expect to see open banking lead to a separation between savings accounts and payments capabilities. Further, personal financial management with account aggregation, and APIs for KYC, have emerged as some of