Abu-Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Investment Office to open first international branch in Tel Aviv

ADIO will subsequently open offices in Europe, North America and Asia

Emirates NBD

Dubai’s Emirates NBD signs MoU with Bank Leumi Le-Israel

Bank Leumi currently holds approximately 30 per cent market share in the Israeli banking system

Kuwait bourse debuts in region’s best 1st-day pop for a year

Boursa Kuwait joins Dubai Financial Market and Tel Aviv Stock Exchange as publicly traded regional exchanges

Emirates NBD

Dubai’s Emirates NBD enters into MoU with Israel’s Bank Hapoalim

The agreement will allow Israeli clients to transact directly in the UAE

Gulf International Bank to hire advisers for Dollar bond

The bonds are likely to be offered as soon as this week

Kuwait parliament approves state budget with $46bn deficit

Kuwait’s deficit last fiscal year widened to KD5.64bn, up almost 69 per cent from a year earlier

Oman to tap investors to plug budget deficit

Besides signing a bridge loan for OMR770m and issuing OMR550m in development bonds this year, Oman has also been tapping its reserves and privatising some assets

Bahrain offers dollar bond, sukuk to plug growing budget gap

Bahrain is on course to rack up a deficit that the International Monetary Fund projects will be at 15.7 per cent of gross domestic product

Venture capital investment in fintech remains steady; M&A activity recedes – report

The EMEA region witnessed $4.6bn in fintech investment in the first half of 2020

UAE spending

UAE federal budget records Dhs9.75bn surplus in H1 2020

The federal government’s total revenues were reported at Dhs34.7bn

How digital transformation enabled Al Salam Bank Bahrain to weather the Covid-19 storm

Rafik Nayed, group CEO, Al Salam Bank Bahrain, discusses the bank’s digital strategy in the Covid era with Gulf Business

Israel’s two biggest banks sending delegations to UAE

The normalisation process announced last month is the first between Israel and a Gulf Arab state

Dubai

Dubai issues $2bn in sukuk and bonds at lowest ever interest rate

Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC, and Standard Chartered Bank were mandated to manage the issuance process

Abu Dhabi issues $5bn multi-tranche, 50-year bond

The 50-year tranche is the longest term for a bond issued by a GCC sovereign issuer

First Abu Dhabi Bank

First Abu Dhabi Bank to start talks with Israeli lenders

The decision follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the UAE central bank and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office

Commercial Bank of Kuwait taps Thales for contactless payment technology

Thales technology will digitise credit and debit cards available on CBK app

Shailesh Dash

Phi Trends: How Covid-19 has accelerated healthtech

The crisis has opened up many growth avenues for healthtech ventures, which are attracting a significant amount of investor interest, opines entrepreneur and investor Shailesh Dash, who shares his market perspective in this monthly column

UAE investor with $540m in cash says M&A spree not over

The Abu Dhabi-based company has amassed a portfolio spanning real estate to utilities and health care to food services

Abu Dhabi Investment Office Invest in Israel

Abu Dhabi Investment Office and Invest in Israel outline upcoming areas of collaboration

The collaboration will focus on innovation and technology

Emirates NBD, DMCC partner to ease payment process for freezone members

A zero per cent credit card installment plan has been introduced for a wide range of DMCC services

Delivery Hero picks Mastercard to digitise payments across MENA

The project spans the GCC, Jordan and Egypt for Talabat, HungerStation and Zomato

data centre

Delma Exchange picks BIOS Middle East for cloud hosting

Delma Exchange turns IT Infrastructure from CAPEX to OPEX

Kuwait finance ministry to mull halving $66bn debt ceiling

The finance and economic committee has also suggested reducing the period for borrowing

Saudi Arabia reserves grew in July from lowest level since 2010

The government could still face a budget deficit of over 13 per cent of gross domestic product in 2020

Bahrain plans return to debt market with mix of bonds, sukuk

Bahrain is under fiscal strain despite a $10bn bailout package pledged by its wealthier neighbours in 2018

Top Dubai, Israeli banks seek to cooperate after peace deal

Discussions between Bank Leumi and Emirates NBD Bank are at an early stage and no final decisions have been made

State of the global Islamic economy: Eyeing new frontiers

With Muslim consumers across the world seeking out faith-based products and services, the Islamic economy is seeing robust growth among all its different verticals

Abu Dhabi’s Yas Theme Parks to accept Alipay

Chinese tourists can pay using the highly popular digital payment platform

Saudi Aramco appoints new CEO for $500m investment arm

Mahdi Aladel, who formerly led the state energy producer’s base oils and lubricants division, will take over

Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait, Ithmaar Holding discuss acquisition plans

The plans, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, are still in the preliminary discussions phase