News
Anghami Lab Venue To Bridge Digital And Traditional Entertainment
The Dubai venue is scheduled to open in early 2022.
During the last year and a half, we’ve seen more concerts canceled than performed. Unable to entertain their fans in person, many artists have embraced modern digital alternatives, taking full advantage of social media and music streaming platforms. But it seems that the entertainment industry is finally ready for reopening because Anghami, the leading digital distribution company in the Arab world, has announced its plan to bridge digital and traditional entertainment with its innovative entertainment venue named Anghami Lab.
The new venue will open in the heart of Dubai, and it will feature a studio where artists can work on their music and a venue where they can perform it. The resulting music will then be available for streaming on the Anghami app (available on Windows, Symbian, Windows Phone, Linux, BlackBerry OS, Android, iOS, Chrome OS, OS X, MeeGo, and even PlayStation 4).
To give visitors one more reason to come in, Anghami has partnered with Addmind, the region’s market leader in hospitality, to serve a fusion of Arabic and International recipes that represent the different flavors of music available on the Anghami app.
“We are excited to partner with Addmind to create this unique, transformational experience for our users,” said Eddy Maroun, co-founder and CEO of Anghami. “Anghami Lab is an amazing and unique concept that embodies our rich Arab culture with an international twist, which we are thrilled to bring to fruition and scale,” added Tony Habre, CEO of Addmind.
Also Read: Anghami Review: The MENA’s Favorite Music Streaming Service
The Dubai venue is scheduled to open in early 2022, and more venues are planned to open not long after in Riyadh, Jeddah, Cairo, Beirut, London, New York, Los Angeles, and other global cities.
The announcement of Anghami Lab comes ahead of the proposed merger with Vistas Media Acquisition Company, a special purpose acquisition company. The goal of the merger is to list Anghami on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
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.
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.
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