Mashreq, a leading financial institution in the UAE, has invested in the Abu Dhabi-based NymCard, the only Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider in the Middle East, in order to support the country’s growing fintech sector.
This investment strategy is part of Mashreq’s FinTech fund, which was formed to promote the UAE’s fintech ecosystem by fostering innovation through collaborations, with the goal of providing a streamlined and superior customer experience.
Although the terms of the agreement were not disclosed, it will allow large or small fintechs to leverage NymCard’s modern open Application Programming Interface (APIs) to establish new business proposals that require payment card functionality.
Fernando Morillo SEVP Group Head Retail Banking Mashreq Bank
“The UAE has witnessed significant growth as a FinTech hub, both from an investment perspective and from a burgeoning crop of tech-savvy innovators, and this shows no signs of abating. We recognize the crucial role Fintech plays in growing financial inclusion and the digital economy and will continue to identify opportunities, invest and support our partners to help drive this growth. We look forward to scaling up the FinTech ecosystem in the UAE in partnership with NymCard.”
Mr. Omar Onsi, CEO and Founder of NymCard, said that “We are very excited about this partnership with Mashreq Bank as it is considered a major milestone in our journey, enabling fintechs to launch and scale quickly within the UAE market. With this new relationship, NymCard has dramatically reduced the cost and time it will take for fintechs to get live in the UAE, with innovative payment cards that support their business models, leveraging our modern and open API-based infrastructure.”
Recently, Mashreq Bank upgraded its transaction process’ security and reliability with Israel-based cyber security and big data analytics company, ThetaRay. Its next-generation solution will enable safe and secure cross-border payment transfers for correspondent banking with protection from financial crime.
