News

New Kuwaiti-Based Netflix Series Features Women In Lead Roles

Set in Kuwait during the 1980s, The Exchange follows the story of the women who shook up the cutthroat world of the stock market.

Published

4 years ago

January 26, 2023

Nour Nasir

Netflix

After the teaser dropped a couple of weeks ago, Netflix subscribers can now watch the official trailer of the new Kuwaiti series, The Exchange. The show is scheduled to premiere on February 8th and is inspired by the real-life story of Farida and Munira, two women who played a pioneering role in the fast-paced and heavily male-dominated stock market of 1980s Kuwait.

The Exchange stars Rawan Mahdi, Mona Hussain, and Hussain Almahdi. It takes the audience on a journey through the trials and tribulations of navigating a male-centric industry during a time when Kuwait’s stock market was booming.

Written by Nadia Ahmad, Anne Sobel, and Adam Sobel and directed by Jasem AlMuhanna and Karim El Shenawy, the six-part series offers a refreshing take on our current obsession with everything from the 1980s.

Also Read: 5 Best Video Streaming Services In The Middle East

“Having grown up in Kuwait and surrounded by independent women my whole life, this production is close to my heart. Rawan and Mona perfectly depict the struggles women experienced back in the 80s, and I can’t wait for the world to see their characters’ stories unfold on the big screen. Besides the plot, I am excited for the audience to see how we brought this era to life, which brings together local and international expertise in a high-production masterpiece, shot and produced entirely in Kuwait,” says the show’s producer, Abdullah Boushahri.

The Exchange is Netflix’s second original Kuwaiti series. In September 2022, the platform released The Cage, a comedy-drama about the ups and downs of marital life.

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

1 week 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.