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KSA To Roll Out Google Pay And Alipay+ As Digital Payments Surge

Google Pay will arrive this year and Alipay+ by 2026 through mada, part of SAMA’s push to expand cashless payments under Vision 2030.

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ksa to roll out google pay and alipay+ as digital payments surge

Google Pay will soon launch in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom’s central bank confirmed during the Money20/20 Middle East conference in Riyadh. The move marks an expansion of the country’s digital payments ecosystem and supports its Vision 2030 target of lifting cashless transactions to 70% by 2025.

The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has also signed an agreement with Ant International to deploy Alipay+ services by 2026. Both Google Pay and Alipay+ will be routed through mada, the national payments network, ensuring compatibility with domestic cards and retail systems.

SAMA described Google Pay as offering “an advanced and secure payments experience,” allowing users to provision and manage mada cards and credit cards directly in the Google Wallet app. Officials said the launch is part of wider efforts to strengthen infrastructure and support the Kingdom’s fintech ambitions.

The Alipay+ agreement will allow visitors to make purchases in Saudi Arabia using international wallets linked to the platform, streamlining cross-border transactions and reinforcing the Kingdom’s role as a payments hub.

Also Read: Uber To Add Blade Air Taxi Bookings Through Its App

Speaking in Riyadh, SAMA Governor Ayman Al-Sayari struck an optimistic note: the number of Saudi fintech firms jumped from 82 at the end of 2022 to around 281 by August 2025. He put cumulative sector investment at $2.39 billion and described the payments system as a standout success, with electronic payments making up 79% of retail transactions in 2024 — amounting to 12.6 billion transactions, up from 10.8 billion the year before.

Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan added that the Saudi financial market has reached nearly $640 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing globally. He said work is underway to integrate artificial intelligence into financial systems, part of broader reforms tied to Vision 2030.

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A Three-Clinic Network Bets Dubai Is Ready For Longevity Medicine

Longevium has enlisted nearly 100 clinicians and created an AI platform in a bid to sell biological-age tracking as a medicine, not a wellness service.

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a three-clinic network bets dubai is ready for longevity medicine

Dubai has been busily creating the scaffolding for a longevity industry, including a dedicated regulatory authority and a health market deep enough to sustain it. Now the clinics are arriving.

Longevium, a longevity clinic network, has opened three locations across the city: a flagship at Triple Seven Mall on Jumeirah 3, and branches in Jumeirah Lake Towers and Jumeirah Village Circle. Together they house a multidisciplinary team of nearly 100 physicians and specialists offering what the company bills as “a measurable medical system for longevity”.

longevity dubai clinic launch

The pitch is that longevity medicine should look less like a wellness menu and more like continuous clinical care. Each patient’s biological age assessment, laboratory results, body composition, cardiovascular risk factors, metabolic markers, and lifestyle data feed into a single profile, with a proprietary AI platform helping physicians track progress and adjust protocols against the patient’s own biomarkers.

“Healthy aging must be approached clinically through diagnostics, biomarkers, physician supervision, longitudinal tracking, and protocols tailored to the individual,” said Dr. Ksenia Butova, Longevium’s founder and CEO. “Our goal is to help patients understand their health trajectory before disease develops, and then actively change that trajectory”.

The treatment list spans peptide-based protocols, exosome therapies, stem cell approaches, GLP-1 metabolic optimization, hormone balance programs, cardiovascular prevention, and regenerative aesthetics — a model built for the entrepreneurs, executives, and international patients the clinic says want measurable results rather than generic wellness. A signature offering, Longevity Day, compresses biomarker testing, ultrasound and vascular imaging, specialist consultations, IV therapy, and a personalized optimization roadmap into a single three-hour visit.

Also Read: Dubai Certifies The World’s First Purpose-Built Air Taxi Vertiport

“Here, longevity, biotechnology, AI, prevention, and regenerative medicine are converging into a single ecosystem,” said Butova. “This is why Longevium was built in Dubai, and why we believe the UAE can become a global reference point for longevity medicine”.

The emirate established the Dubai Longevity Authority in 2026 to oversee its longevity, wellness, and advanced health sectors, and the Dubai Health Authority reported insured beneficiaries exceeding 4.9 million in 2025, up around 6.5%, with insurance claims reaching approximately 49.6 million, up around 13.5%.

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