News

Careem Launches Lebanon Aid Drive With WFP

Donations will be matched through in-app giving, food orders, olive oil, and remittances. However, the end date and matching cap have been left unstated.

Published

4 months ago

May 1, 2026

Joanna Melki

careem launches lebanon aid drive with wfp

Careem launched a fundraising campaign with the World Food Program on April 30 to support emergency food assistance in Lebanon, the Dubai-based super app said.

The campaign, called Seeds for Lebanon, routes donations through several Careem services. Customers can give directly through an in-app Donate feature, with Careem stating that 100% of those contributions will go to WFP operations in Lebanon. Through Careem Food, AED 2 from every order at six participating restaurants — The Good Bowl, Wrapped, Sofret Beirut, Oventine by Al Safadi, Al Safadi, and Manoushe Street — will be directed to relief. Careem Quik will donate 100% of profits from Lebanese olive oil purchases, and Careem Pay will waive fees on transfers to Lebanon for the duration of the campaign. Careem also said it will match all donations made through the initiative.

Mudassir Sheikha, the company’s chief executive and co-founder, said the matching arrangement was meant to multiply the impact of every contribution made. Bashar Al Hammami, head of WFP partnerships in the UAE, said working with Careem allowed donations to be converted into food assistance for those in greatest need.

Careem described the launch as an extension of its relief activity beyond Gaza, citing previous donation drives that it said raised more than AED 2.2 million and were tied to nearly 47,500 food orders.

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Several operational details were left unspecified. The announcement did not state when the campaign ends, whether the donation match is capped, which Careem markets can participate, which corridors qualify for zero-fee Careem Pay transfers, or how quickly funds will be passed to WFP. It also did not clarify whether the 100% pledge applies after payment-processing or platform costs, or whether the matching commitment covers only direct in-app donations or extends to restaurant orders and olive oil contributions as well.

Careem, which describes itself as the “Everything App for the Middle East,” said the campaign is live across its platforms. The company says it operates in more than 70 cities across 10 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.

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

1 week 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.

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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.