News

New Fintech App Aims To Improve Children’s Financial Literacy

A startup known as Leap has built an app to help kids track where their money is being spent, and to help them save more effectively.

Published

4 years ago

November 16, 2022

Nour Nasir

new fintech app aims to improve children's financial literacy

For children and young teens, it can be hard (and not to mention boring!) to get a handle on topics such as budgeting and saving. Money and financial matters aren’t exactly a top priority for youngsters, but they are vital subjects to master in order to be better prepared for adult life.

To that end, UAE-based startup Leap has an ambitious goal of helping young people to make better financial decisions and to improve basic money management skills and literacy. The fintech company has developed an app aimed at young people and their parents, which works to incentivize good budgeting and saving habits.

“Financial literacy is a core life skill that is not readily taught while growing up. Most kids get their first taste of financial responsibility when they go off to college without the oversight and knowledge on managing their money. We’re committed to changing this reality and empowering kids as young as 6 years old to understand, value, and manage their money,” says Ziad Toqan, CEO and Co-founder of Leap.

Parents can transfer a child’s allowance into the app or have funds appear when certain milestones are achieved (such as good school grades). Children using the service will get a prepaid Visa card linked to their Leap account, allowing them to use their balance however they see fit.

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As well as helping to promote better budgeting and sensible spending, the app also diverts unused funds to a savings account at the end of each week, which Leap hopes will encourage kids to spend less and save more.

The app is available on both Apple and Android devices and is suitable for children between 6 and 18 years of age. Leap is currently focused on the UAE, but has plans to expand into Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the future.

News

Samsung And Spotify Offer Free Premium Deal In MENA

Nearly seven in ten streams in the region come from 18-to-34-year-olds — the audience Samsung is hoping to entice into its ecosystem.

Published

7 days ago

August 7, 2026

Nour Nasir

Samsung

Samsung has announced a partnership with Spotify spanning the Middle East, North Africa, and Türkiye, bundling Spotify Premium with select devices across its ecosystem. The headline offer — up to four months of Premium for free — is a first for the region.

Customers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Türkiye who buy any OLED or 98-inch television, or any Galaxy S or Z series mobile device, get four months of Spotify Premium. The offer, tiered by market and device, is available at retail and on Samsung.com, and redeemed through the Samsung Promotion and Samsung Members apps.

For Samsung, the strategy is less about free music than about lock-in. The Korean tech giant’s pitch is continuity: a track starts on a Galaxy smartphone through Galaxy Buds on the commute, moves to a Samsung TV and soundbar in the living room, and stays controllable from a Galaxy Watch. The more seamlessly music travels between those devices, the harder it becomes to swap any one of them for a rival’s.

“Technology should bring people closer to the things they love, and few things connect people the way music does,” said Omar Saheb, Regional VP of Marketing and Online Business at Samsung Electronics MENA. The partnership, he added, gives customers “a genuine reason to choose Samsung for the experience, not only the product”.

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For subscribers, Premium brings the usual package: ad-free listening, offline downloads, richer audio quality on Galaxy Buds and Samsung sound devices, and Jam, which lets friends build a shared queue.

“At Spotify, we are always working to make every listening moment feel more personal, meaningful, and worth it,” said Rami Jamal, Head of Partnerships at Spotify for South Asia, Middle East, and Africa.

The demographics go a long way to explaining the strategy. Across MENA, Türkiye, and Pakistan, nearly seven in ten Spotify streams come from listeners aged 18 to 34, according to the company — precisely the audience Samsung wants inside its hardware ecosystem before buying habits harden.