News

Twitter Verification Costs More For Middle Eastern Firms

Businesses and organizations in several MENA countries will be charged more for verification than their counterparts in the USA.

Published

3 years ago

April 8, 2023

Nour Nasir

twitter verification costs more for middle eastern firms

Twitter’s blue badge system, Twitter Verification, is the company’s way of signifying whether a public interest account is authentic. Last year, after Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform, the blue tick was removed from accounts and replaced with subscription-based badges.

In December, Twitter introduced three new verification badges in different colors:

A gold tick for business organizations.
A gray tick for government-affiliated accounts.
A blue tick for individuals.

However, as the new verification system rolls out, Twitter users in Saudi Arabia have noticed that prices are an estimated 6.7% more than for US businesses.

The standard price for a business or organization is $1,000 for a monthly subscription and an additional $50 per month for each affiliate. On the other hand, Saudi Arabian organizations will have to stump up $1,066.67 and $53.55, respectively.

Also Read: Web Summit Expands With New Middle East Event In Qatar

UAE organizations will also have to pay more for verification, with monthly subscription costs climbing to $1,007.49. Qatar accounts will also pay more at $1,016.48, while those in Egypt will be charged $1,003.35. Interestingly, all other MENA countries will pay the standard $1,000 per month subscription and $50 monthly affiliate fee.

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

2 weeks 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.