MENA Fintech Association

MENA Fintech Association is a not-for-profit industry body founded in 2018 and based in Dubai. It links fintechs, banks and regulators across the Middle East and North Africa through chapters in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Iraq and Africa. The member list includes Wise, Binance, Fireblocks and BCB Group; Wise joined on 7 September 2026.

Where payments sit

Eight working groups split the work: policy, digital assets, open finance, AI, sustainability, marketing, digital banking and SHIFT, the payments pillar. SHIFT deals with B2B payments, merchant acceptance and stablecoin infrastructure. Its roundtable report "The State of B2B Payments in MENA", dated 30 July 2026, lists awareness gaps and adoption barriers.

Recent news

Late September 2026 brought a partnership with the Jordan FinTech Academy (30 September), a bi-annual regulatory update on ADGM's digital asset framework (22 September) and an alliance with STORM Partners (21 September). The MENA Fintech Awards, in their fifth edition, run during Abu Dhabi Finance Week. News and reports sit on the association's Fintech Nexus site.