News

Anghami’s New Elite Program Starts With A Three-Decade Catalog

The streaming platform is packaging entire careers rather than single releases, and Egyptian singer Angham is its first test case.

Published

3 weeks ago

August 19, 2026

Nour Nasir

Anghami

Streaming services have spent years optimizing for what’s new: the latest single, the newest playlist, the algorithmic nudge toward whatever dropped this week. Anghami is betting there is also an audience for the long view. The platform, which bills itself as the leading music and entertainment streaming service in the Middle East and North Africa, announced Anghami Elite today, a flagship program built around artists whose influence is measured in decades rather than chart weeks.

The first edition is dedicated to Angham, represented by Believe Artist Services. Across a career spanning more than three decades, the Egyptian singer has built a catalog that has resonated with generations of listeners across the region, and her latest EP, De Rohy, sits at the center of the launch.

Each Elite edition is designed to gather exclusive content, curated listening experiences and fan-focused activations, tracing an artist’s creative journey alongside their cultural impact. For Angham, that means personal stories from across her career, listening built around the songs that defined different chapters of it, and what Anghami calls special fan moments.

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“It is always a pleasure to connect with my audience, whether through my music, on stage, or through meaningful partnerships and initiatives that allow me to share a different part of myself with them,” Angham said. “This initiative gives me another beautiful opportunity to celebrate that connection and to share De Rohy in a new and personal way”.

Salam Kmeid, Head of Music Marketing at Anghami, cast the program as a matter of scope. “Anghami Elite is about giving artists of this calibre a platform that celebrates the full breadth of what they have created and the impact they continue to have,” Kmeid said. “It is also an opportunity for audiences to reconnect with their music in new ways, while introducing their work to new generations of listeners”.

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.