ICN Media had the opportunity to experience building the momentum of its opening day, the summit’s concluding sessions reinforced Dubai’s position as a global financial hub, bringing together distinguished financial executives, institutional investors and emerging fintech enterprises.

Building on the strategic discussions and international engagement generated during its opening day, the Dubai FinTech Summit 2026 concluded its second day at Madinat Jumeirah, further reinforcing Dubai’s growing influence in shaping the future of global finance, financial technology and investment innovation.

Organised by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the fourth edition of the summit formed a central component of Dubai Future Finance Week, held under the theme “Finance Reimagined: Where Innovation Meets Policy and Purpose.”

The concluding day extended the summit’s emphasis on financial transformation, connecting senior banking executives, regulators, institutional investors, technology entrepreneurs and financial innovators within an increasingly integrated international financial ecosystem.

Business Intelligence & News

Dubai FinTech Summit by DIFC | Day 1

• The opening day brings together policymakers, banking executives, institutional investors, fintech entrepreneurs, and technology innovators.
• Great business insights by Mohammed Alabbar on AI’s impact on business.
• Dubai reinforced its position as a leading international financial and innovation hub.
• The event aligns with the objectives of the Dubai Economic Agenda D33, particularly the expansion of high-value economic activities.

• FINANCE

FinTech Startups and Entrepreneurs: From Innovation to Economic Value

Dubai’s Expanding Financial Ecosystem and Economic Competitiveness

Looking Ahead to Dubai FinTech Summit 2027

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What the 60-minute account includes

Eligibility rests on one main condition: a valid RAKEZ trade licence. Once a company qualifies, it can open a business bank account in the UAE through Rakbank in under an hour. The account opens as a zero-balance business account for the first 12 months, which means no minimum balance requirement during that period. A zero minimum balance helps most in a company’s early months, when revenue can be uneven and locking cash into a mandatory deposit is hard. Rakbank also cuts the monthly maintenance fee to AED 49 for the first year, a flat charge that keeps the account active. Two more incentives apply. Businesses can earn AED 1,000 in cashback by holding a monthly average balance of AED 25,000 in each of the first three months after opening. Rakbank is waiving fees on domestic and international transfers as well, under an acquisition offer that runs until 31 October 2026.

Business Intelligence & News

Rakbank delivers D 2.5B profit after tax, up 21.3% YoY

• A diversified business and durable earnings continued to deliver outstanding returns, with ROE at 23.3% and ROA at 3.1%.
• Asset Quality remained strong, with impaired loans improving to 1.7%
• Personal Banking expanded its wealth proposition into digital equities and silver
• The results also include the  AED 473M gain on sale of the merchant acquiring business.

• BANKING

Why RAKEZ offers the UAE’s fastest business bank account opening

The speed comes from joining two steps that usually run apart. RAKEZ handles company formation and licensing. Rakbank handles the banking. The UAE’s fastest business bank account opening relies on that link, because a pre-cleared path removes much of the delay that a standard application carries. Every bank in the country runs know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering checks before it approves an account, and those reviews can stretch over days or weeks depending on the business activity. Pairing the licence with a ready banking channel shortens the wait to minutes for firms that meet the terms.

What Rakbank brings beyond the account

Rakbank business banking does not stop at the opening. The bank points to financing, transaction banking, payments and trade services that a company can add as it grows. Vishal Shah, Managing Director of the Business Banking Group at Rakbank, framed the appeal around time, saying “speed matters to businesses.” He said owners would rather build their companies and serve customers than wait for an account to work. Ramy Jallad, Group CEO of RAKEZ, called the hour-long opening “an important step forward in simplifying access to banking.” He linked the move to the zone’s goal of supporting firms through growth, not only at setup.

What qualifying firms should check

Companies weighing the offer should read the conditions closely. The 60-minute figure describes the account opening once a firm is eligible and its papers are in order, not the time to form a company or secure a RAKEZ trade licence. Cashback is conditional, since a business must keep the AED 25,000 average across each of the three qualifying months, not only on a single day. Transfer fees are waived under the acquisition offer, which ends on 31 October 2026. A company that opens after that date would still gain the fast opening and the first-year fee terms, though the transfer benefit depends on the live promotion. Reading each term against a real cash-flow plan is the practical step before applying.

Where the offer fits for UAE founders

For many founders, opening a business current account ranks among the slower parts of starting a company in the UAE. Timelines vary by bank, by activity, and by how complete the paperwork is. A route that clears banking alongside the licence removes a common delay. The RAKEZ and Rakbank proposition works that way. It gives qualifying companies a defined account, set fees for the first year and a cashback target they can plan around. The result is the UAE’s fastest business bank account opening for companies that pass the checks. Firms that want the transfer waiver will need to act before the 31 October 2026 deadline.

RAKEZ in numbers

RAKEZ hosts more than 50,000 companies drawn from close to 200 countries and working across over 50 industries. It issues free zone and non-free zone licences and runs several specialised zones. Al Nakheel and Al Hamra Business Zones serve commercial and service firms. Manufacturers and industrialists use the Al Ghail, Al Hamra and Al Hulaila Industrial Zones. An Academic Zone serves education providers. That mix means the faster account could reach many company types, from small consultancies to industrial operators. Eligibility still depends on a RAKEZ trade licence and on passing Rakbank’s checks, so the UAE’s fastest business bank account opening will apply to approved applicants rather than to every firm by default.

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What in-country inference means for you

Inference is the moment an AI model does its work. You ask a question, the model answers. That answer gets generated somewhere, on servers that sit in a physical location. For most global AI services, that location has been outside the UAE. For a bank, that is a problem. Your account data, your transactions, your personal details would have to travel across borders to reach the model.

In-country inference changes that. The model runs on UAE-based infrastructure, so the data being processed stays within national borders. For a bank built on trust, that detail matters more than almost anything else. Banks work in one of the most heavily regulated industries anywhere, where security, governance and compliance are not optional. Keeping the processing local lets Emirates NBD adopt frontier AI at full scale while meeting UAE rules on data residency, privacy and operational resilience.

Where the bank will put the technology

Emirates NBD plans to use OpenAI GPT models across several parts of the business. The bank will improve how it engages customers across digital channels. It will support risk and compliance work with advanced analytics. It will automate workflows that eat up staff time, and it will aim to lift employee productivity.

There is a second layer to this. Emirates NBD will connect the models to its own internal systems, APIs and enterprise data. That link lets the bank build new digital services faster, personalise what it offers each customer, improve engineering output and strengthen its controls around risk monitoring and financial crime.

Miguel Rio-Tinto, Group Chief Digital and Information Officer at Emirates NBD, framed the move as a shift in how the bank operates rather than a side project. He said the collaboration embeds frontier AI capabilities directly into the bank’s operating model, letting it innovate at speed while holding the highest standards of governance, security and regulatory alignment. He added that AI is not an experiment for the bank, calling it a core capability that will shape how it builds, serves and scales.

Why a bank becomes the first MENA bank to deploy OpenAI

The timing is not an accident. OpenAI recently launched UAE data residency for its enterprise customers, letting organisations keep the data their AI processes inside the country. That offer removed a barrier that had held many UAE institutions back. Demand for sovereign AI cloud services has grown quickly across the region, and the lack of local data residency was a common sticking point.

Emirates NBD moved first among banks. The lender holds total assets of AED 1.3 trillion, around 354 billion dollars, and serves more than 25 million active customers across the Middle East, North Africa, Türkiye and South Asia. No financial terms of the collaboration were disclosed. The two companies describe Emirates NBD as the region’s first participating bank, and that claim has not come with an independently published comparison of other deployments, so treat it as the parties’ own description.

What sovereign AI means in practice

Sovereign AI is the idea of running advanced AI inside a country’s own borders, under its own rules. It lets an organisation use powerful models without sending sensitive information abroad. For the UAE, that concept sits at the centre of national policy.

Farouk El Hamzawi, Head of Enterprise at OpenAI MENA, said Emirates NBD is setting a benchmark for how financial institutions can deploy AI securely and responsibly at scale. He said OpenAI is supporting that ambition with its models, tools and UAE-based inference, helping the bank meet regulatory requirements.

The deployment lines up with the UAE’s broader AI goals. It supports the country’s push to build world-class AI infrastructure and speed up responsible AI adoption across strategic sectors. It also aligns with the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031, the government’s long-term plan to make AI a driver of the economy. The move reflects a wider trend: sovereign AI capabilities are becoming more available, and that availability lets organisations use advanced AI while staying within local governance and regulatory lines.

For customers, the near-term effect is quiet. You may see faster digital services, more personalised banking and stronger fraud controls over time. The bigger shift is underneath, in where your data lives when AI touches it, and that answer is now the UAE.

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A category Apple waited to enter

The move places Apple in a market Amazon and Google defined more than half a decade ago. The structural logic is clear. Apple already sells the phones, watches, and speakers that fill many homes, and a shared screen gives those products a fixed point to orbit. HomeView recognizes each person by their face and adapts, so one household device can surface private content from Messages, FaceTime, Calendar, Reminders, and Find My without mixing one user’s information with another’s. Reports put the ceiling at six enrolled users. That design answers a problem every shared-screen maker has faced, which is how to keep a communal device personal. Apple’s answer leans on hardware it already controls and on identity tied to the iPhone.

What Apple HomeView does

The feature set spans four jobs. It plays media, connects people, manages the smart home, and runs hands-free automations by voice. For music, HomeView works with Apple Music and shows animated album art and lyrics, and it supports Apple Podcasts, Apple News, Apple TV, and compatible third-party audio and video apps. Handoff lets a user move a song from iPhone to the display by placing the phone in front of it. Set up several HomeView, HomePod, and AirPlay speakers around a house, and audio can follow a person from room to room.

Communication runs through FaceTime with Center Stage, which keeps people framed as they move. Messages can be read and answered by voice or keyboard. Intercom broadcasts a short message to one room or the whole house. In the kitchen, the display converts web recipes into step-by-step instructions with hands-free timers.

Design built for any room

HomeView uses an aluminum body and a 7-inch Liquid Retina display joined to a domed speaker base by a stainless steel hinge that tilts for comfortable viewing. The tabletop model comes in silver, starlight, rose pink, and space gray, each with a matching cable. A separate wall-mounted version, offered in space gray and silver, carries the same screen and audio and attaches with three purpose-built mounts from Schneider Home, with self-install or professional options.

The display adapts to its surroundings. True Tone and adaptive brightness run from 500 nits in a sunlit room down to 0.3 nits for a nightstand. The interface also changes with distance, showing simple information from across the room and richer detail up close. Sound comes from two full-range drivers in the display plus a down-firing woofer and two force-cancelling passive radiators in the base, tuned in real time by computational audio.

Siri AI at the center

The most consequential part is Siri AI, a rebuilt assistant powered by the next generation of Apple Intelligence and newer Apple silicon. Apple describes it as more capable and conversational, with broad world knowledge, so anyone in the home can ask a question and get an answer. Paired with an Apple Intelligence iPhone or iPad, Siri AI draws on personal context. It can act across apps and surface details from Messages, Calendar, and Apple Music playlists.

Conversations started on the display continue in the Siri app, syncing privately through iCloud across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Users can tune the voice’s pace and expressiveness, and that setting carries over. People without an Apple Intelligence device still get the broad knowledge and improved music discovery. Siri AI is the thread meant to tie Apple’s home products together, which raises the stakes on how well it performs in daily use.

A dashboard for the connected home

HomeView doubles as a control panel for a connected house. By touch or voice, a user can view camera feeds, set the thermostat, adjust lights, lock doors, or close blinds. The Home Camera face livestreams up to nine feeds at once. With a supported iCloud+ plan, the display works with compatible cameras to recognize people, familiar faces, pets, packages, and vehicles using end-to-end encryption, and it can alert the household when someone reaches the door. Video descriptions summarize HomeKit Secure Video clips so users grasp what happened without watching. The device also detects smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and sends alerts to a phone, tablet, or watch.

Much of this depends on the Apple Home Collection, a new lineup of cameras, thermostats, and a lock developed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. HomeView also supports other Works with Apple Home and Matter accessories, which keeps it open to hardware Apple did not build.

Privacy handled on the device

Apple built HomeView around on-device protection. The A18 chip includes Secure Exclaves, compartmentalized runtimes that process camera and microphone data apart from the rest of the system. Data handled there stays out of reach of the software, apps, the user, and Apple. Personal content in apps like Messages and Calendar appears only when the enrolled user is recognized by face, and their paired iPhone or iPad is present and was recently unlocked. Siri requests run on the device or through Private Cloud Compute, where data is not stored or made accessible to anyone. For a shared screen that watches and listens, that framing is the pitch to cautious buyers.

The Apple HomeView price and release date

The commercial terms are straightforward. The Apple HomeView price is set at $299 for both the tabletop and wall-mounted versions, though wall mounting adds installation and power costs. The Apple HomeView release date is November 13, after pre-orders that opened on announcement day. The timing lands the product in stores before the holiday buying season, when smart home devices sell in volume. Apple introduced it alongside refreshed home hardware and the Apple Home Collection, signaling a coordinated push rather than a single launch.

Where HomeView fits the market

The structural question is whether Apple can convert its installed base into a smart home display habit it has never owned. HomeView costs more than its direct rivals. Amazon’s Echo Show 8 launched at $179.99, and the Echo Show 11 at $219.99, and both run Alexa and double as hubs with wider protocol support. Google’s Nest Hub occupies the same shelf. Apple’s wager is that facial personalization, tighter iPhone integration, and a stronger privacy story justify the premium for households already inside its ecosystem. For Android homes, the value is thinner. The verdict rests on Siri AI. If the assistant performs, HomeView becomes the anchor of a coherent home line. If it falls short, a well-built screen risks becoming an expensive photo frame. Either way, Apple has now committed to a category it long avoided, and that commitment reshapes how its home strategy reads.

Built with the environment in mind, HomeView uses 100 percent recycled aluminum in its enclosure base, recycled gold and tin in its circuit boards, and recycled rare earth elements in its magnets, as part of Apple’s plan to reach carbon neutrality across its footprint by 2030.

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Inside the launch of Arqaam Academy

Arqaam Capital, the Dubai-based emerging markets investment bank whose research reaches across MENA, built the Academy to close a gap it understands from the inside. New graduates tend to arrive with theory and little feel for how the job runs hour to hour. Heba AlHusseiny, Partner, Human Capital Management at the firm, framed it as a question of time. The theory is there, she said, but the practice can take a year or more to pick up on the job. In her words, the programme gives participants “that grounding in seven weeks, taught by the people who do this work every day.”

Heba AlHusseiny, Partner, Human Capital Management at Arqaam Capital, said: “Graduates arrive in finance with strong theory but little exposure to how the work is actually done, and that gap usually takes a year or more on the job to close. The Arqaam Analyst Programme gives our participants that grounding in seven weeks, taught by the people who do this work every day. As a firm built from the region, for the region, we believe investing in young talent is how we help shape the economies of tomorrow. This first cohort marks the start of a permanent platform to develop the next generation of change makers in the region’s capital markets, with planning for the next cohort already under way.“

A cohort chosen with care

Competition for a place was real. Candidates wrote a case study, built a valuation, and defended an investment call before two interview panels. The first group represents 17 universities and business schools, among them the London School of Economics, Imperial College London, Oxford, INSEAD and Bocconi. More than 16 nationalities share the room, and selection leaned deliberately toward gender balance. For a seven-week Arqaam Analyst Programme, that is a wide net.

What the seven weeks cover

Teaching falls into two halves. The first four weeks move through three-statement modelling and valuation, from discounted cash flow to comparable companies and precedent transactions, then into mergers, acquisitions and leveraged buyouts. Sector research, live investment simulations and a module on AI in finance run alongside. The next three weeks are led by Geoff Robinson, founder of TheInvestmentAnalyst.com and a former managing director at UBS, where he led the Global Fundamental Analytics franchise and developed the UBS Research Academy.

His weeks cover advanced valuation, deal structuring, fixed income and MENA debt markets, equity research, report writing and pitchbook work. In the final week, participants present company recommendations to senior management. Classes run at the DIFC Academy in Gate Village, with sessions at Arqaam’s offices in Index Tower.

Why it matters beyond one cohort

An investment banking analyst programme in Dubai is usually run inside a global bank. Arqaam is doing it as a regional house, founded in 2007, that serves more than 1,500 institutional clients and covers over 230 listed companies. The launch of Arqaam Academy puts that research depth to work on training, not only on client coverage. Everyone who finishes earns an Academy certificate. Strong performers will be considered for full-time analyst roles, and others for internships.

For a firm that calls itself built from the region, for the region, the launch of Arqaam Academy reads as a bet that it can make its next analysts at home. Planning for the second cohort is already underway.

About Arqaam Academy

Arqaam Academy is the learning and development platform of Arqaam Capital, a regional investment bank headquartered in Dubai’s International Financial Centre. Building on the firm’s internal learning experience, the Academy brings practical industry knowledge to emerging talent and institutional partners through structured programmes, technical training and professional development.

The Academy connects learning with the realities of financial markets, drawing on the expertise of Arqaam’s practitioners to develop technical capability, commercial understanding and professional confidence.

About Arqaam Capital

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Arqaam Capital is a fully fledged institutional investment bank focused on the emerging and frontier markets of the Middle East and North Africa. With offices across four key markets: the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Republic of Lebanon, the firm operates at the intersection of the GCC, the Levant and North Africa, positioned directly across the region’s principal capital corridors.

Arqaam Capital serves more than 1,500 institutional clients globally, including sovereign wealth funds, global asset managers, family offices, corporates and pension funds. It operates one of the largest research platforms in the region, with active coverage of more than 230 listed companies across MENA, giving global investors and regional principals one of the most comprehensive views of listed corporate activity in the region.

Arqaam’s capabilities span the full institutional spectrum: asset management, equities, fixed income, investment banking, equity and debt capital markets, structured debt, wealth management, electronic trading and corporate finance. The firm connects global capital to the markets others overlook, giving international allocators real access and on-the-ground insight across MENA, and giving the region’s issuers a route to global capital executed with institutional discipline.

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Ministerial Decision No. 168 of 2026 took effect on October 1. It repealed Decision No. 64 of 2025 and its amendments, including Decision No. 56 of 2026. Under the new framework, a service provider must complete the required accreditation assessments and testing before it receives approval to operate.

The Ministry of Finance has issued Ministerial Decision No. 168 of 2026 on the Eligibility Criteria and Accreditation Procedures for Service Providers under the Electronic Invoicing System, https://t.co/k0sDRPfKX0

— وزارة المالية | الإمارات (@MOFUAE) October 9, 2026

How the UAE e-invoicing accreditation rules work now

The change reflects a shift from a build-and-test phase to a live system. During the earlier phase, pre-approval let providers onboard while the technical infrastructure and interoperability arrangements were set up. That stage is gone. Providers now face one accreditation gate. The UAE e-invoicing accreditation rules apply a single standard to every applicant.

Each provider must demonstrate technical capability, operational readiness and compliance before accreditation. The Ministry said the aim is to improve compliance efficiency and strengthen oversight of e-invoicing.

What the 30-day window means for providers

Providers that received preliminary approval before October 1 have up to 30 days from that date to meet the new requirements. They do not need to file a new application unless the Ministry decides otherwise. Miss the deadline, and the preliminary approval ends.

The clock is short. For a provider mid-setup, 30 days leaves little room. The requirement is proof, not intent. A provider must show it can run the service and stay compliant.

Business Intelligence & News

Wio Bank introduces the UAE’s first auto-enabled Click to Pay solution

• Wio Bank is the first issuer in the UAE to auto-enable Mastercard’s Click to Pay across its cards.
• Shoppers can finish online purchases without typing card numbers, using tokenization and EMVCo authentication standards.
• The Mastercard Payment Passkey service confirms each payment with a fingerprint or a face scan instead of passwords or one-time passcodes.
• Mastercard is working toward a fully tokenized and authenticated e-commerce system by 2030, with token use among MENA merchants rising sharply.

• PAYMENTS

Peppol certification and outsourcing stay in place

The decision keeps rules that let providers use third-party Peppol service provider products. It also lets them outsource development, operation, or management, along with parts of their e-invoicing services. Responsibility does not transfer. Each provider remains fully accountable for compliance and service delivery.

Peppol certification sits at the centre of the system. The UAE model runs on a five-corner Peppol structure, where accredited providers exchange invoices and report tax data to the Federal Tax Authority in near real time. An Accredited Service Provider must meet the technical standards that keep invoices valid across the network.

Where this fits in the UAE e-invoicing mandate 2026

The UAE e-invoicing mandate 2026 is rolling out in phases, with a pilot stage that began on July 1. Businesses will need to appoint an Accredited Service Provider to issue and receive compliant invoices. Penalties apply for firms that fail to appoint a provider within the set timeline.

The new UAE e-invoicing accreditation rules tighten the entry point for that provider market. Rules on renewal, ongoing evaluation, and termination also sit inside the framework. Providers can challenge a termination decision through a formal process.

For the market, the message is direct. The testing window has closed. Any provider that wants to serve UAE clients must clear accreditation first, and existing holders of preliminary approval have until the end of October to get there.

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What auto-enablement changes for customers

Auto-enablement is the detail that sets this apart. Rather than asking each customer to register a card and opt in, Wio turns the feature on by default for cards that qualify. Shoppers meet the option at checkout without any setup of their own. That design choice lowers the usual barrier to adoption, where a useful tool sits unused because few people take the step to activate it.

Prateek Vahie, Chief Commercial Officer at Wio Bank, said the bank wants to bring efficiency into daily transactions and offer streamlined, user-friendly payment journeys powered by Mastercard’s technology. The practical result is narrow but real. A customer finishes a purchase faster, and the bank gains a smoother path for the online spending that now drives much of UAE digital payments.

Business Intelligence & News

Sharjah Islamic Bank’s $500 million Sukuk clears at 5.85 percent final yield

• Sharjah Islamic Bank raised US$500 million through a five-year Sukuk.
• The order book reached US$1.3 billion, or 2.6 times the issue size.
• Pricing landed at a 5.85 percent yield, 105 basis points over five-year US Treasuries.
• The deal was the bank’s 13th Sukuk since it entered capital markets in 2006.

• BANKING

How the Click to Pay solution works

The Click to Pay solution rests on two ideas that work together. First comes network tokenization. Instead of passing the real card number to a merchant, the system swaps it for a unique digital token, so the sensitive details never sit on the retailer’s systems. The second idea is a shared standard. Click to Pay is built on EMVCo authentication standards, which means it is designed to behave the same way across different cards, devices, browsers, and a growing set of merchants.

A shopper does not need a separate wallet tied to one phone or operating system. The token represents the card, the standard governs how the token is checked, and the purchase clears without the card data changing hands in the open. That consistency is part of the appeal, because a payment method that works everywhere is one a customer will actually reach for.

Security moves from passwords to biometrics

Security is where the service makes its clearest claim. Each payment can be confirmed through the Mastercard Payment Passkey service, which uses device-based biometric authentication such as a fingerprint or facial recognition. The passkey approach removes passwords and one-time passcodes from the flow.

For the shopper, that cuts the wait for a text message and the risk of a mistyped code. For the wider system, it closes a common point of attack. Because the card number is tokenized, intercepted data is of little use to a fraudster, and no financial account details are shared with third parties.

Gina Petersen-Skyrme, Senior Vice President and Country Manager for the UAE and Oman at Mastercard, said the company is working to make online checkout faster, more secure and more intuitive, and that the collaboration with Wio should help lift adoption of online transactions in the country.

Who governs the standards?

Behind the convenience sits a question of governance. Two questions sit underneath: who writes the rules that let a token stand in for a card, and who is accountable when a payment fails, or data is exposed. The answer is layered. EMVCo, the body owned by the major card networks, sets the technical standard. Mastercard operates the tokenization service and the passkey system on top of it. Wio, as the issuer, decides to enable the feature and carries the relationship with the customer.

Each layer holds a defined role, and that division matters as more spending moves online. A standard that works across providers also spreads responsibility, so no single merchant becomes the weak link holding a shopper’s card details. For a regulator and a consumer alike, knowing where each duty rests is worth as much as the speed at checkout.

The road to a tokenized economy

The Wio rollout is one piece of a longer plan. Mastercard has said it is working with partners toward a fully tokenized and authenticated e-commerce system by 2030, a target that would see manual card entry fade from online shopping. Momentum in the region is already visible.

According to Mastercard’s report with Checkout.com, token adoption among merchants in MENA grew by 345 percent, a sign that retailers are moving in the same direction as issuers. For the UAE, which has pushed to expand digital payments and reduce reliance on cash, a passwordless online checkout solution adds to that direction without demanding new habits from the public. The benefit for consumers is measured in seconds saved and codes avoided.

The larger shift is structural. As tokens replace card numbers and biometrics replace passwords, the question of who governs the Click to Pay solution becomes as important as how fast it runs, and Wio’s early move places it among the issuers helping to set that pace.

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What a Sukuk is

A Sukuk is a Shariah-compliant certificate that stands in for a conventional bond. Rules of Islamic finance prohibit paying or charging interest, so a Sukuk cannot take the form of a simple loan. Returns instead come from a pool of underlying assets, and each holder owns a share of those assets rather than a debt claim. The instrument still pays a steady income, which is what makes the Islamic bond a working substitute for conventional fixed income. Basis points are the unit issuers use to measure yield gaps. One basis point equals one hundredth of a percentage point, so 105 basis points means 1.05 percentage points above the Treasury yield. That gap, called the spread, is the extra return investors ask for to hold the bank’s paper rather than US government debt.

Structure also matters to buyers. In a senior unsecured Sukuk, holders rank alongside the issuer’s other unsecured obligations and sit ahead of subordinated debt if the issuer runs into trouble. That ranking shapes how much yield investors demand in return.

Inside the Sharjah Islamic Bank $500 million Sukuk

Demand of 2.6 times the issue size points to a deep bid for the paper. An order book records how much investors are willing to buy and at what price. Bankers open the book with early guidance, then narrow the yield as bids come in. A book worth more than the target, known as oversubscription, hands the issuer leverage to cut the cost of the deal. Pricing on the Sharjah Islamic Bank $500 million Sukuk landed at par. Buyers paid face value and took the 5.85 percent periodic distribution rate.

Mohamed Abdalla, chief executive of Sharjah Islamic Bank, said the result reflects investor confidence in the bank’s performance and its long-term plan. He described capital market activity as a core part of how the bank funds itself and supports its financing goals.

Why the numbers held up

Sharjah Islamic Bank went into the sale with stronger half-year figures. The bank reported net profit after tax of AED803.9 million for the six months to 30 June, up 15.3 percent from AED697.2 million a year earlier. Total assets stood at AED94.5 billion at the end of June, a rise of 4.7 percent from AED90.3 billion at the close of 2025. Those results gave investors a clearer read on the balance sheet behind the paper.

Both executives tied the sale to funding strategy rather than a one-off need. Ahmed Saad, deputy chief executive, said the size of the order book confirms investor trust in the bank and its record in international markets. He added that the sale gives the lender more room to manage funding needs and widen its sources of liquidity. Dollar Sukuk let a bank raise money outside its deposit base and spread funding across more sources. Diversifying liquidity this way can steady a bank when local conditions tighten.

The five-year tenor is a common choice for bank Sukuk. It is long enough to lock in funding, yet short enough to keep the yield below what a ten-year deal would cost.

The UAE Sukuk market backdrop

The deal landed while the wider UAE Sukuk market stayed active through 2026. Moody’s Ratings expects global Sukuk issuance to reach about US$280 billion for the full year, close to the 2025 level, despite geopolitical strain across the Middle East. Issuance ran near US$130 billion in the first half. Corporate issuers drove much of that activity, while governments and financial institutions sold less long-term paper than before. Short-term issuance rose to fill part of the gap.

For Sharjah Islamic Bank, the sale extends a presence in dollar Sukuk that started in 2006. This was the bank’s 13th trip to the Sukuk market, a run that spans different rate cycles and shifting investor appetite. Repeat issuance helps a bank build a pricing history that later deals can lean on.

What the Sharjah Islamic Bank $500 million Sukuk signals

The Sharjah Islamic Bank $500 million Sukuk shows that a mid-sized Gulf lender can still draw a large, oversubscribed book in a busy market. Pricing inside initial guidance suggests investors were comfortable with both the credit and the yield. Demand at 2.6 times cover, paired with firmer half-year earnings, points to steady confidence in the bank as a repeat issuer. Whether that appetite holds through the rest of the year may depend on rate moves and the pace of new supply.

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Today, universities across the UAE are developing Emirati talent, attracting international students and academics, supporting scientific research, producing advanced professional skills and strengthening the country’s ability to compete in knowledge-intensive industries.

This transformation has helped position the UAE as an increasingly attractive global destination where students can pursue internationally competitive education, experience one of the world’s most dynamic economies and, in many cases, begin their professional careers within the country.

Dubai illustrates the scale of this expansion. During the 2024–25 academic year, enrolment in private higher-education institutions regulated by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority reached 42,026 students, representing annual growth of around 20%. International students increased strongly and represented approximately 35% of total enrolment, while the sector offered more than 700 academic programmes.

The ambition extends considerably further. Dubai’s higher-education strategy aims to increase the proportion of international students, expand educational tourism and raise the sector’s contribution to the economy, demonstrating that education is increasingly being developed not only as a social investment, but also as an internationally tradable, knowledge-based economic activity.

Leadership Vision: Empowering Emirati Youth, Building Future Leaders and Advancing Sustainable Development

The most important asset within any advanced economy is ultimately not its physical infrastructure, natural resources or financial capital alone. It is its human capital.

This principle has become deeply embedded in the UAE’s development philosophy.

Under the leadership of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, investment in people—and particularly in Emirati youth—remains at the heart of the nation’s long-term development direction.

The strategic importance given to youth reflects the recognition that the next phase of the UAE’s progress will depend increasingly on the ability of young Emiratis to become scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, physicians, economists, researchers, technology specialists, policymakers and leaders of both public and private institutions.

The objective is therefore much greater than increasing university graduation rates.

It is about creating generations capable of leading the country’s transition towards a sophisticated knowledge economy.

University education consequently represents one of the most important channels through which this national ambition can be achieved.

The UAE has developed a higher-education environment that provides young Emiratis with access to federal universities, internationally recognised private institutions, specialised technological universities and branch campuses of leading global academic institutions.

This sophisticated educational landscape supports the transition from education to productivity, from knowledge to innovation and from qualifications to leadership.

The development of Emirati youth also forms an essential component of broader national strategies aimed at increasing citizens’ participation in high-value economic sectors.

The National Youth Agenda 2031, for example, seeks to strengthen young Emiratis’ participation in economic development, expand access to future-oriented academic and vocational qualifications and encourage youth-led enterprises in promising economic sectors.

This direction closely complements national employment policies designed to increase Emirati participation in technology, artificial intelligence, financial services, energy, healthcare, advanced sciences and other strategic sectors.

Universities therefore sit at the centre of a much larger economic equation.

They provide the intellectual and professional foundation upon which Emiratisation, economic diversification, entrepreneurship and national leadership development can be sustainably built.

Alongside this national direction, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has consistently placed education, future readiness, government innovation and human development among the foundations of the UAE’s global competitiveness.

His government’s future-focused approach has helped reinforce a model in which education is expected not only to respond to existing labour-market requirements, but to anticipate the professions, industries and technologies of tomorrow.

Artificial intelligence, digitalisation, advanced engineering, data science, sustainability, biotechnology, entrepreneurship and future government capabilities are consequently becoming increasingly embedded within the UAE’s academic landscape.

The philosophy is particularly important.

Successful university systems cannot simply educate students for jobs that exist today. They must create the knowledge and analytical capabilities required for industries that may dominate the economy ten or twenty years from now.

The country’s flagship national strategy, We the UAE 2031, reinforces this principle by identifying human capital, future skills, global talent attraction and advanced education among the foundations of national development.

The vision calls for cutting-edge education capable of developing knowledgeable, highly skilled individuals who can contribute to shaping the future, while simultaneously strengthening the UAE’s ability to attract international talent.

This creates a complementary economic model.

On one side, the UAE invests heavily in preparing Emirati youth to become the principal national source of leadership, innovation and professional capability.

On the other, it remains open to international students, researchers, professors and specialists whose knowledge strengthens the country’s wider innovation ecosystem.

This combination of national talent development and international intellectual attraction is one of the UAE higher-education system’s most significant strategic advantages.

University Education and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UAE’s educational agenda also has an important international dimension through its alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The most direct connection is with SDG 4 – Quality Education, which promotes inclusive, equitable and high-quality education alongside lifelong learning opportunities.

However, the impact extends significantly beyond education itself.

Universities contribute directly to SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth by strengthening employability and productivity; SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure through research and technology development; and the broader sustainability agenda through expertise in clean energy, climate science, sustainable cities, healthcare and responsible economic development.

The UAE has increasingly encouraged universities to become active participants in this sustainable-development process.

Academic research is being connected to policy priorities, while universities are encouraged to contribute practical solutions to economic, environmental and social challenges.

The collaboration between national academic institutions and sustainable-development programmes demonstrates an important evolution in the role of higher education.

A university today is not simply expected to teach.

It is expected to research, innovate, collaborate with industry, support public policy and generate measurable social and economic value.

The combined leadership vision of developing Emirati youth, attracting international knowledge and preparing society for future economic transformation has therefore made university education one of the principal instruments through which the UAE can simultaneously advance its national development agenda and contribute to global sustainable-development objectives.

Diversity, Academic Quality and Advanced Programs

The UAE has built one of the region’s most diverse higher-education ecosystems, combining federal universities, private institutions, specialised research universities, technological colleges and international branch campuses.

Major institutions include United Arab Emirates University, Khalifa University, Zayed University, Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi University, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, New York University Abu Dhabi and Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi.

This breadth combines academic quality, specialisation, employability, research and international standards.

UAE Universities Rising in Global Academic Competition

The international rankings achieved by UAE universities provide further evidence of the sector’s development.

In the QS World University Rankings 2027, Khalifa University reached 147th globally, becoming the first UAE institution to enter the QS global top 150.

United Arab Emirates University ranked 217th, the American University of Sharjah 258th, the University of Sharjah 283rd, and Abu Dhabi University 348th globally.

These positions reflect an increasingly competitive academic environment.

Rankings are not themselves a complete assessment of university quality, but sustained improvements in research citations, academic reputation, international faculty representation, employer reputation and graduate outcomes provide useful indications of how strongly UAE universities are integrating into the global higher-education system.

The presence of international branch campuses further increases the country’s academic offering.

Students in the UAE can access institutions connected with internationally recognised universities from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, India, the United States and other countries.

The result is an educational market combining domestic academic capacity with international institutional expertise.

The Economic Return: Higher Education as a Driver of UAE 2031, D33 and Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030

Higher education generates value beyond tuition through employment, research and spending across housing, transport, retail, hospitality, technology and professional services. Its most important long-term contribution, however, is human-capital formation and productivity.

A highly educated workforce enables firms to adopt technology, commercialise innovation and move into higher-value sectors. This directly supports We the UAE 2031 and its ambition for talent, investment and knowledge-based growth.

The same principle underpins the Dubai Economic Agenda D33, where growth in trade, investment, technology and advanced services requires skilled professionals, and Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, which emphasises a productive workforce, diversification and knowledge-intensive industries.

The strategic conclusion is clear: economic diversification cannot be sustainable without corresponding diversification in skills and knowledge.

Abu Dhabi University: A Model of Academic Development and Labor-Market Alignment

Abu Dhabi University provides an important example of the rapid development occurring across the UAE’s higher-education sector.

Under the chairmanship of Dr Ali Saeed Bin Harmal Al Dhaheri, the university has strengthened its academic standing, expanded its programmes and reinforced its focus on employability, research and international quality standards.

The university reached 348th globally in the QS World University Rankings 2027, representing another significant improvement in its international position.

It has also achieved notable recognition across international academic assessments and has strengthened its reputation among employers.

One of its major recent achievements came through its College of Business, which achieved the highly prestigious AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA Triple Crown accreditation.

Only a small proportion of business schools internationally achieve all three accreditations, making the accomplishment particularly significant for the university and the UAE’s business-education sector.

Adding further weight to this progress, on 17 September 2026, Abu Dhabi University was awarded an overall QS Stars 5+ rating, following an independent assessment under the QS Stars methodology. Significantly, ADU achieved five stars across all nine evaluated categories: Teaching, Research, Employability, Facilities, Good Governance, Social Impact, Global Engagement, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and MBA Programme Strength. This broad-based recognition is particularly relevant because it evaluates institutional performance beyond conventional rankings and demonstrates strength across both academic quality and student outcomes.

The scale of ADU’s academic community further illustrates its development. The university now reports more than 10,000 students representing over 100 nationalities, 32,000 graduates and more than 65 accredited programmes, strengthening its role as an internationally diverse institution while contributing to the UAE’s objectives in talent development, innovation and the knowledge economy.

Abu Dhabi University’s importance should, however, be considered beyond ranking positions.

A fundamental strength of modern universities is their ability to translate academic education into employment outcomes and economic participation.

ADU’s career services and employer-engagement activities seek to connect students with private companies, public institutions and professional opportunities through job matching, career counselling, interview preparation, CV and LinkedIn development and employer networking.

This model reflects a wider requirement across the UAE.

Universities should not operate independently from employers.

Curriculum development, internships, professional qualifications, research and career services should continuously respond to economic transformation.

Under Dr Ali Saeed Bin Harmal Al Dhaheri’s leadership, Abu Dhabi University’s progress provides an example of how UAE-based institutions can combine academic expansion, international standards, private-sector responsiveness and national development objectives.

Its continued improvement also supports Abu Dhabi’s broader ambition to establish itself as an international centre for education, research and innovation.

Education Exhibitions: Creating a One-Stop Marketplace for Academic Opportunity

As the UAE’s university ecosystem becomes larger and more diverse, students and parents require effective platforms through which they can understand the rapidly expanding range of educational choices.

University and training exhibitions therefore play a valuable role by bringing education providers, students, families and professional-training organisations together under one roof.

An outstanding example was the Gulf Exhibition for Training & Education – Abu Dhabi 2026, held from 14 to 16 September 2026 at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi and organised by Midpoint.

The event became an important educational gathering connecting young people directly with universities and academic institutions.

Approximately 60 universities and educational institutions from the UAE and internationally participated, while the exhibition attracted more than 8,000 students from government and private schools.

These numbers demonstrate the scale of demand for direct academic guidance.

For a young student approaching graduation, choosing a university can be one of the most consequential economic and professional decisions of his or her life.

Students must assess disciplines, future employment opportunities, tuition costs, scholarships, accreditation, postgraduate opportunities and career prospects.

The Gulf Exhibition helped consolidate much of this information into a one-stop educational marketplace.

Students and parents could speak directly with admissions specialists, compare universities, understand scholarship opportunities and evaluate programmes without depending exclusively on websites, advertisements or overseas education agents.

The exhibition brought together a strong representation of the UAE university sector.

Participating institutions included Liwa University, Higher Colleges of Technology, RAK Medical and Health Sciences University, Zayed University, University of Sharjah, University of Al Dhaid, United Arab Emirates University, American University of Sharjah, University of Kalba, Ajman University and Abu Dhabi University.

Specialised institutions and training providers also participated, including ADNOC Technical Academy and hospitality and professional education providers, alongside international universities and education organisations.

This diversity was one of the exhibition’s strongest characteristics.

Students could evaluate conventional academic degrees alongside vocational, technical and professional education pathways.

That distinction is important because future labour markets will require multiple forms of expertise.

Not every successful career requires the same academic pathway, and modern economic development increasingly depends upon technicians, programmers, hospitality professionals, engineers, healthcare specialists and skilled vocational employees alongside conventional university graduates.

From an economic perspective, exhibitions such as the Gulf Exhibition for Training & Education also help reduce information asymmetry within the education market.

Universities can communicate directly with prospective students.

Students gain clearer information about programmes and admission standards.

Parents obtain greater transparency regarding educational choices.

Scholarship providers can reach suitable candidates.

Training institutions can present alternative career routes.

International institutions can better understand UAE student demand.

The exhibition therefore performs an important function at the intersection of education supply, student demand and future workforce planning.

Its organisation in Abu Dhabi also reinforces the capital’s rapidly developing position as a centre for knowledge, culture, higher education and international academic exchange.

As university choice becomes more sophisticated, such exhibitions will increasingly form part of the infrastructure required to guide young people towards disciplines that correspond not only with their personal ambitions, but also with the UAE’s future economic requirements.

Education as Strategic Economic Infrastructure

The next phase of UAE economic development will increasingly depend not only on physical infrastructure, but on the country’s ability to develop intellectual infrastructure.

Universities sit at the heart of this challenge.

They educate Emirati youth, attract international talent, strengthen scientific research, create intellectual property, support entrepreneurship and supply the skills required by artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, renewable energy, aerospace, logistics and the digital economy.

More importantly, they help transform the UAE from a destination that primarily attracts financial investment into one that also attracts knowledge, researchers, students, innovators and future leaders.

The country’s higher-education strategy can therefore be understood as the development of an integrated education–research–innovation–talent–employment ecosystem.

Its ultimate success will not be measured simply by the number of university campuses or graduates.

It will be measured by the quality of Emirati leadership emerging from those institutions, by the employability and productivity of graduates, by scientific discoveries and commercialised research, by businesses created, by international talent attracted and by the contribution universities make to the UAE’s long-term economic competitiveness.

In this sense, education represents far more than a public service.

It is strategic economic infrastructure—and one of the most important long-term investments the UAE can make in its future prosperity.

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Why the Fed decides the UAE’s rate

Behind the CBUAE base rate increase sits a US Federal Reserve rate hike of the same size. The Fed lifted its Interest Rate on Reserve Balances by 25 basis points and moved its target range to 3.75% to 4%. Because the dirham-dollar peg fixes the currency at 3.6725 to the dollar, the Central Bank tracks US policy closely to hold that line steady. When Washington moves, Abu Dhabi tends to follow within a day or two. This was the first increase in the UAE rate cycle since 2023, and it reversed a cut made late last year that had taken the rate down to 3.65%. Markets had largely expected the shift, so the reaction at home was calm.

What it means for your home loan

Here is where the numbers reach the kitchen table. Changes in the base rate feed into EIBOR mortgage rates, the Emirates Interbank Offered Rate banks use to price home loans and other credit. If you hold a UAE variable-rate mortgage, your monthly payment could rise the next time your rate is reviewed. A homeowner carrying a large variable loan may pay several thousand dirhams more over a year. Fixed-rate borrowers sit in a calmer spot. Your rate stays put until the fixed term ends, so nothing shifts right away. When that term does end, the loan could be repriced at whatever rate applies then.

Who gains and who pays more

The CBUAE base rate increase does not land on every wallet the same way. Savers may see better returns if banks pass the increase into deposit products, which rewards anyone keeping cash aside. Businesses face the other side of the ledger. Firms carrying variable loans, especially in real estate, construction and SME financing, could see borrowing costs climb while energy and shipping bills already weigh on margins. The effect spreads slowly, through repricing dates and new credit rather than an overnight jump. Households and companies that planned ahead for tighter conditions will feel less of a jolt.

What to watch next

The Central Bank has little room to steer its own course while the peg holds. That keeps attention on the Fed and its next meeting, where policymakers will weigh inflation and jobs data before deciding whether more increases are coming. For UAE residents, the practical questions are close to home. Check whether your mortgage is fixed or variable. Ask your bank when your rate resets. If you are shopping for a loan, factor in that credit costs a little more than it did a week ago. Small steps, but they add up when rates are on the move.

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