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botim money & Binance Weigh UAE Path For Regulated Crypto Access

Talks between botim money and Binance test how crypto could sit inside a fast-growing UAE fintech stack.

Published

9 months ago

December 8, 2025

botim money and binance weigh uae path for regulated crypto access

botim money, one of the MENA region’s fastest-growing fintech platforms, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with cryptocurrency exchange Binance to examine whether crypto features can be slotted into the UAE-based super-app’s financial tools. The deal, sealed during Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai, marks botim’s latest push beyond messaging toward a fuller payments and investment layer.

The companies are studying how Binance’s digital-asset infrastructure might mesh with botim’s domestic and cross-border rails. The work starts with basic questions: what services can be offered under the UAE’s rulebook, and how to deliver them without creating risk for users already relying on the app for daily transfers.

Catherine Chen, Head of VIP & Institutional at Binance, said: “Crypto is no longer a niche asset class and it is increasingly becoming integrated into everyday financial services. Our collaboration with botim money to make digital assets accessible to botim’s tech-savvy customers exemplifies this shift”.

botim money’s pitch has long centered on users with thin links to the banking system. Crypto access, if approved, would extend that mission to communities seeking simpler ways to move or store value. Sacha Haider, Chief Strategy Officer at Astra Tech/botim, said the potential integration “allows us to build on this foundation and offer customers new ways to engage with the digital economy”.

Also Read: Cartlow Rolls Out Subscription Model For GCC Retail Platform

The UAE has carved out a regulatory lane for digital assets, drawing exchanges and fintechs into controlled experiments. That backdrop gives partnerships like this room to test consumer-facing products while regulators watch the perimeter.

If botim and Binance advance beyond this exploratory phase, the move would strengthen the region’s bid to root digital-asset activity in mainstream finance and add weight to botim’s regional fintech ambitions.

Related Topics:Binance Botim Money Cryptocurrency United Arab Emirates

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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

3 days 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.