News

Take A Balloon Journey To Space, Complete With Fine Dining!

If you’d like to experience spaceflight, but aren’t ready to jump aboard a rocket-powered or ultrasonic spaceship, why not take a more leisurely balloon option?

Published

3 years ago

April 25, 2023

Nour Nasir

take a balloon journey to space complete with fine dining

Zephalto

If you’re a millionaire looking to broaden your horizons, commercial spaceflight is undoubtedly one of the most popular ways to take travel experiences to new heights.

But what if you’re nervous about being strapped into a rocket-powered or ultrasonic spacecraft and looking for a more sedate journey into the stratosphere?

Luckily, a French company, Zephalto, has you covered with their $132,000 (AED 485,110)-balloon experience that floats gently to the 25km-high second layer of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Well-heeled passengers will board the Céleste — Zephalto’s pressurized balloon capsule — at a spaceport in France. One hour later, space travelers will reach a peak altitude three times higher than the cruising height of commercial airliners.

When the capsule arrives at peak altitude, guests will stay in the stratosphere for around three hours, where they’ll be treated to two gourmet meals, aperitifs, wine tasting, and get the opportunity to take the most original high-altitude Instagram snaps.

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Although a niche and expensive pastime for the ultra-wealthy, space tourism is estimated to be worth $8 billion by 2030 — over ten times the current market size of 2023. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are now well established in the high-end travel sector, and SpaceX’s Elon Musk has recently proposed an even more radical excursion — a Moon loop flight aboard the company’s Starship craft.

Meanwhile, astronaut boot camps such as US-based Orbite now offer space training for as little as $15,000 (AED 55,088), while well-known commercial airline builders such as Airbus and Boeing are also competing for a slice of the space-tourist pie.

News

NEOPAY Wants To Follow Merchants Across Channels And Borders

A controlling 65% stake in noon payments would give NEOPAY access to marketplace sellers, online merchants and the payment flows they generate.

Published

1 day ago

October 5, 2026

Nour Nasir

neopay wants to follow merchants across channels and borders

It’s been a long time since checkouts were single defined places. A merchant might take payments at a physical register, on its own website and through an online marketplace, sometimes in more than one country. NEOPAY wants to follow those transactions wherever they happen.

The UAE payments company has entered into an agreement to acquire a 65% controlling stake in noon payments. NEOPAY already runs the acquiring infrastructure that lets merchants accept card payments, along with omnichannel acceptance and a merchant services platform. This new deal would add noon payments’ embedded payments platform, e-commerce gateway and merchant network across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. That would considerably expand both NEOPAY’s digital commerce capabilities and its regional reach.

For merchants, the attraction is a single provider for online and in-store payments, plus faster settlements, data and analytics, and value-added financial services.

“Payments should be simple, reliable, and built for the markets they serve,” said Faraz Khalid, CEO of noon. His counterpart at NEOPAY, Vibhor Mundhada, added: “We have built a strong payments business in the UAE, and our ambition is now to take that capability across the region”. The acquisition, Mundhada added, would “expand our footprint into Saudi Arabia and Egypt” while reinforcing NEOPAY’s position at home.

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NEOPAY is also keen to point out potential payment volume increases. The company says noon payments’ integrations with marketplace sellers and online merchants create high transaction density in some of the region’s fastest-growing digital commerce segments. It also believes control of the business would give it access to those merchant relationships and payment flows, and speed up the rollout of alternative payment methods and installment options.

The combined roadmap targets faster merchant onboarding, better payment performance, tighter fraud controls and embedded financial services. The deal could also strengthen cross-border payments and settlement along key regional commerce corridors.