News

Talabat And Truecaller Enter Strategic Partnership

Truecaller’s Verified Business Caller ID solution will provide a safe and efficient experience for Talabat food delivery teams, restaurant partners, and end users.

Published

2 years ago

April 2, 2024

Nour Nasir

Talabat

Talabat, a leading MENA food delivery platform, has announced a new strategic collaboration with Truecaller, a platform for verifying contacts and blocking unwanted communication. The partnership aims to revolutionize the food delivery sector by boosting customer safety and streamlining communications using Truecaller’s Verified Business Caller ID suite.

At a time when smartphone users are inundated with nuisance calls, Talabat aims to provide a trusted, secure experience for delivery personnel, restaurant affiliates, and end-customers. Using Truecaller’s Verified Business Caller ID solution, the delivery firm can now provide an authentic brand identity while allowing users to easily spot genuine business calls.

talabat and truecaller partnership

By integrating elements including brand name, logo, category name, verification mark, and a unique green badge, Talabat will now enjoy a unique and more trustworthy presence in the Middle East and North African markets.

Priyam Bose, Global Head GTM & Developer Products, Truecaller, stated: “Truecaller is synonymous with trust and safety in communication […] We are thrilled to partner with Talabat, empowering their restaurant partners and delivery personnel to offer a superior, efficient, and safer communication experience to their customers, from the moment of ordering to the delivery lifecycle”.

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Meanwhile, Hadeer Shalaby, Talabat Egypt MD, emphasized the company’s dedication to seamless operations and end-user satisfaction: “We strongly believe in the power of effective partnerships, and we are pleased to collaborate with Truecaller. This partnership aims to facilitate communication between our customers and delivery teams, ensuring the fastest and safest service possible”.

So far, over 2500+ businesses worldwide have benefitted from Truecaller’s Verified Business Caller ID and other advanced communication features. Besides enhancing business communication efficiency, the company has significantly reduced phone-related fraud and scams, helping to promote heightened customer safety during business communications.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.