News

Careem Suspends Its Ride-Hailing Services In Qatar

The announcement comes without any official explanation, though is thought to be due to a lack of regulatory approval.

Published

4 years ago

February 28, 2023

careem suspends its ride-hailing services in qatar

Yesterday (Monday, February 27), Uber Technologies sent a message to customers informing them that Careem, the Dubai-based company acquired by the ride-hailing giant in 2019 for $3.1 billion, will cease operations in Qatar today.

The surprise announcement comes just two months after Qatar’s soccer World Cup, which saw Careem-branded vehicles forming part of the official transport infrastructure, alongside Uber cars and local taxis from Karwa.

careem qatar message to users

“Unfortunately, Careem’s ride-hailing operations will no longer operate in Qatar as of February 28, 2023,” informed the message, telling customers that Careem credit would be refunded by March 15, 2023.

Also Read: Saudi Arabia To Transform Downtown Riyadh By 2030

Careem’s message did not explain the cancellation of the service, and no one has responded to requests for comment, including parent company Uber.

Careem only offered ride-hailing services in Qatar, unlike larger Middle Eastern markets like the United Arab Emirates, where the super app also provides food delivery, digital payments and courier services.

The company suspended its services in Lebanon last year due to the unfavorable economic situation in the country.

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.