News

Dubai Startup Belong Is A Social Platform With A Twist

The company has ambitious plans for growth and has already begun scaling operations in US cities.

Published

3 years ago

November 28, 2023

Nour Nasir

Belong

Startup Belong is an online social platform catering to the needs of fitness, food, travel, arts, sports, and wellness enthusiasts. The app also allows users to connect in person to attend events together.

Founders Michael Askew and Matthew Gaziano have first-hand experience of struggling to connect with the right people after living in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, for seven years and later moving to Dubai.

“When we moved to Dubai, we were excited because the place is amazing. We expected to have a packed, endless social calendar, but when we got here, we realized we’d got to make friends first,” says Gaziano. “How do you get out, find like-minded people, and do all these fantastic things? How do you approach people? It’s not easy to go over and speak to someone in public and start talking about yourself,” he added.

The pair were inspired to design an app where “online meets offline”, helping people to break the ice and form lasting relationships out in the real world.

After launching the app in 2019, the social platform now has a user base of 350,000 and a presence in Dubai, New York, and San Francisco.

Also Read: Top 10 Best Freelance Platforms In The Middle East

Belong works by allowing users to select their interests. After that, they start posting and discussing what they have in common. The company has already secured $3.5 million in crowdfunded investments and plans to raise more funds in 2024 to crack the wider US and MENA markets.

“The UAE is a fantastic place to launch your business,” explains Gaziano. “It’s such a melting pot of cultures and nationalities, and you can really put your startup to the test here”.

The United Arab Emirates aims to become home to 20 startups valued at over $1 billion by 2031 in a bid to become a regional center for innovation and entrepreneurship. Last year, the country launched its Entrepreneurial Nation initiative to help entrepreneurs set up operations in the Emirates and support them when expanding their businesses, exporting products, and tapping into online sales.

The UAE’s digital economy is expected to reach a value of $140 billion by 2031, rising dramatically from its current $38 billion, according to a report by the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy.

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.