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myAster App Will Connect Patients To Doctors In 30 Minutes
The myAster app will link UAE hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers, and pharmacies, allowing rapid access to medical services.
Aster DM Healthcare, one of the largest healthcare providers in the Middle East and India, has just unveiled a version of their myAster app for the UAE market. The service aims to connect patients to general practitioners in as little as 30 minutes after making an appointment, using video conferencing to cut down on wait times.
The myAster app also provides access to hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and diagnostic centers. Users will be able to make appointments and view results 24/7, while the healthcare sector will benefit from a robust platform that joins reporting, medical histories, and other data under a single system.
So far, the app can connect 430 doctors, five hospitals, 48 clinics, and over 20 specialist medical services. As well as video consultations, myAster also features a secure payment gateway, along with access to an online pharmacy complete with a 90-minute home delivery service.
“Our users have access to 200+ Aster hospital doctors for appointment booking. The user interface is easy to navigate, and they can view doctor schedules and slots to select a doctor for consultation. As we continue to innovate, we will be adding Homecare services to the myAster app in the near future,” says Brandon Rowberry, CEO of Digital Health, Aster DM Healthcare.
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The free healthcare app offers many unique features aimed at helping patients manage their health data using a smartphone, and can even be used to help with insurance approvals.
“COVID 19 actually helped us to understand what really works as far as digital health is concerned [and the] UAE has been at the forefront of managing the pandemic, so we thought about how we could move healthcare to the next level, and the way to do that is by going digital,” says Alisha Moopen, Deputy Managing Director, Aster DM Healthcare.
The Aster DM Digital Health team developed their medical portal over a two-year period, with a strong focus on enhancing patient experience. The company’s success now means that its app has the potential to improve healthcare and wellness solutions for residents across the United Arab Emirates and beyond.
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.
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.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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