News

Mastercard & Women Choice Launch Social Innovation Incubator

The new partnership will create employment opportunities for 1 million female entrepreneurs and help to drive economic growth across the MENA region.

Published

3 years ago

April 11, 2023

Nour Nasir

Mastercard

Women Choice, an international organization dedicated to female personal and professional development, has partnered with Mastercard to launch a new program called the “Social Innovation Incubator (SII) For Women’s Employment”. The scheme will help to create employment opportunities for women across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) while also boosting economic growth and development in the region.

Over the next five years, the Women Choice and Mastercard partnership will provide comprehensive support and employment opportunities for MENA women through a program of mentorship that will encompass business planning, HR, and recruitment.

“We are excited to launch this program and to have the support of a global organization like Mastercard, which is genuinely committed to bringing change and improving the situation of women in the workplace,” says Nezha Alaoui, Founder & CEO of Women Choice.

Also Read: UAE Digital Technology Spending To Hit $20 Billion By 2026

Nezha Alaoui will also form part of the jury on the second edition of Mastercard’s Women SME Leaders Awards. The card provider has been at the forefront of several equitable and inclusivity-based projects in recent years. The new Woman Choice collaboration will provide substantial employment support for MENA women and directly place at least 1,000 female entrepreneurs in their respective enterprises.

The incubator program will first launch in the UAE and Morocco, with the whole MENA region eventually benefitting from the business initiatives and training. SII for Women Employment also aligns well with Mastercard’s commitment to add 25 million women entrepreneurs to the global digital economy by 2025 as part of a broader push towards a more sustainable and equitable world.

News

Dirham-Backed Stablecoin DDSC Enters Live Phase In UAE

Central Bank approval moves the dirham-backed token into deployment, targeting regulated payments and settlement flows.

Published

4 days ago

February 13, 2026

Nour Nasir

dirham-backed stablecoin ddsc enters live phase in uae

The UAE has cleared the launch of DDSC, a dirham-backed stablecoin now entering live operation after approval from the Central Bank. The move pushes the project beyond its pilot phase and into the country’s regulated financial system.

The token is backed by a consortium led by IHC, Sirius International Holding and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), framing it as an institutional instrument rather than a consumer crypto product. DDSC was first announced in April 2025, but regulatory clearance now allows deployment and integration across approved channels.

DDSC runs on ADI Chain, a Layer 2 blockchain built by the Abu Dhabi-based ADI Foundation. The infrastructure is designed for governance and performance requirements expected by large institutions, linking blockchain settlement with existing compliance and oversight frameworks.

The focus is practical, targeting treasury settlements, high-value payments, trade and supply-chain transactions, and programmable financial flows for regulated entities. FAB plans to offer access to the token through approved platforms for its clients, keeping the rollout inside controlled banking environments.

“DDSC marks a defining milestone in the UAE’s digital finance journey,” said Syed Basar Shueb, CEO of IHC. “With the Central Bank’s approval and our transition into live operation, we are delivering trusted, institutional-grade infrastructure that strengthens resilience, accelerates innovation, and expands what is possible in regulated digital payments”.

Also Read: Basatne Debuts ORBT Platform For Digital Refunds In UAE

FAB says the project reflects how stablecoins can sit within traditional finance when risk controls are built in from the outset. “This milestone underscores that stablecoins can be integrated responsibly into the financial system when built to meet rigorous regulatory and risk requirements,” said Futoon Hamdan AlMazrouei, Group Head of Personal, Business, Wealth and Privileged Client Banking Group at FAB.

The launch reinforces the UAE’s strategy of pushing digital finance through regulation instead of open-ended crypto experimentation. Stablecoins in this model are positioned less as trading assets and more as programmable extensions of national currency, aimed at institutional scale and government use cases.