Inviting all investors to the party: How FinTech is gaining influence in the Gulf

Bahraini entrepreneur Nawaf AlMaskati’s aim through his start-up is to ensure everyone has an invitation to the party and access to a slice of the cake. Well, not literally, but Tanami Capital is hoping to open up private markets—previously only privy to institutions—to individual investors as well.

The company, which last month received a license from the Central Bank of Bahrain, can now offer institutional-grade global private market investments regionally through a digital platform. Private market investments cover private equity, infrastructure, private debt, and real estate, among others.

“So these markets that have superior risk-adjusted returns than public markets have been really out of reach for everyday investors,” Mr. AlMaskati says.

“For the longest time, over the last 50 years, they've been delivering amazing returns for institutions, but not everyone was being invited to the party.

"What we're doing is we're breaking the barriers; we're making sure that everyone gets an invitation to the party and everyone gets a piece of the cake to be able to invest in the top-tier opportunities that are available out there today

The company, which has partnerships with global asset managers including KKR, Blackstone, Brookfield, and Carlyle, offers access to curated private market opportunities with quarterly liquidity. The minimum amount to start investing through its digital platform is $5,000.

This week, it also unveiled SmartMatch, a private markets robo-adviser, which will enable investors to build portfolios customized to their objectives, investment horizon, and risk appetite.

Bigger pie

With more and more FinTechs like Tanami entering the market, the adoption of financial technology has boomed in the Middle East and North Africa, offering market inclusion, boosting transparency, and providing more options to consumers.

Regional FinTech start-ups recorded their “strongest half-year” in the first six months of 2025, raising $598 million, triple the amount during the same period last year, Magnitt said in a report in September. The amount was raised from 93 deals, also up 69 percent on an annual basis.

The region is expected to be the fastest-growing globally for the sector, with 35 percent annual growth in FinTech net revenue until 2028, compared with a global average of 15 percent, McKinsey said in a report.

This is primarily because the share of FinTech in the Gulf region’s banking sector revenue “has room to grow, representing only 1 [percent] to 2 percent, compared with 3 [percent] to 5 percent in the US and the UK,” the report said.

FinTech start-ups in the MENA region lead way in deal value and transactions

The blue bars represent deal value in US dollars and the red line represents the number of deals

Leading the way

Markets such as Bahrain have long been advocating the adoption of FinTech, with sandboxes in place to support the ecosystem. That is attracting international players.

During the FinTech Forward event in Bahrain last month, cryptocurrency and blockchain solutions company Ripple announced a partnership with incubator Bahrain FinTech Bay.

Under the deal, Ripple and Bahrain FinTech Bay will support the development of proofs-of-concept and pilot projects relevant to Bahrain’s FinTech ecosystem and showcase solutions across areas such as blockchain technology, cross-border payments, digital assets, stablecoins, and tokenization.

The partnership “allows us to expand outside of Dubai, where we received our license earlier this year,” says Reece Merrick, Ripple's managing director for the Middle East and Africa.

It also allows the company to support “a developing ecosystem where there is a proactive regulator that is developing talent through accelerator programs and educational collaboration.”

“And then, on our own side of things as well, is, how can Ripple expand our offering into Bahrain? And really, we see a ton of opportunity around stablecoins," he says.

US-based Ripple last week announced it had secured a $500 million strategic investment in a deal led by Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities, pushing its valuation to $40 billion.

More than 20 percent of the company’s customers are based in the Middle East and Africa, which has become an important market for Ripple, Mr Merrick says.

“We want to play in jurisdictions where there is friendly regulation and where we can develop together. And I think that's part of the process that we've seen in the UAE, and we kind of want to be able to expand that into Bahrain."

As technology accelerates at breakneck speed, regulators across the world have been struggling to balance the setting up of guardrails while ensuring innovation is not affected.

Countries such as the UAE and Bahrain have regulations that protect consumers, and they are progressing as the technology changes, “because things evolve quickly,” Mr. Merrick says.

“The areas of interest in growth are where there is regulation that … financial institutions can follow that have the protection for consumers but also have the ability to evolve as the market evolves.”

Katie Ramsey, head of FinTech at the Department for Business and Trade in the UK government, agrees it is essential for her team to be constantly aware of what is in the pipeline and work closely with businesses.

“We can't predict what might happen. There might be something that will change everything, and we have to be agile and react accordingly,” she says, stressing the need for a rules-based regulatory framework.

“Especially when there's such an established financial system, like in the UK, you also have to ensure that you are prudently regulating to protect consumers or businesses and just trust in the financial system."

But for newer economies, “they have a wonderful benefit of being able to build and it being digitally native right from the start, and they can embed FinTech offerings to their citizens into everyday life right from the start of when they're building their architecture,” she adds.

Even in regional countries that are innovating, traditional industry players are seeking to rapidly adopt new technology into operations.

The National Bank of Bahrain, which this month signed an initial agreement with the Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait to formally explore a merger, has been investing on integrating technology into operations, with a focus on blockchain payment infrastructure.

“We want to see the continued adoption of technology, we're going to see continued integration with global payment systems, and we're going to see more and more ways to become more customer focused,” says Usman Ahmed, group chief executive of NBB.

“So, I think the evolution is going to be driven by the drive towards [being] digitally oriented—that’s what all the banks are investing in.”

He also dismisses concerns about whether FinTech players might eventually push traditional lenders out.

“In any other market globally, you see the FinTechs coexisting with the large banks. And the combination of both provides for better choices and enhanced value propositions for customers. So, I think we see it evolving in pretty much the same way,” he says.

“It’s not like we want to see one at the expense of the other necessarily, and we continue to invest in our own digital platform. At the same time, we are very open and positively oriented towards partnerships.