News
Whish Money Partners With Mastercard For Cross Border Payments
Users in Lebanon can send money abroad to over 50 countries, while Lebanese people living overseas can send money home.
Whish Money, Lebanon’s leading e-wallet and personal finance app, has partnered with Mastercard to unlock faster inbound and outbound remittances for consumers across the country. The tie-up taps into Mastercard Move, the company’s global money movement network, to allow users in Lebanon to send funds to more than 50 countries — and for Lebanese abroad to send money home in near real time.
Through the Whish Money mobile app, users can now make cost-effective transfers to a wide range of destinations. Depending on the recipient’s market, senders can choose how funds are delivered: directly into bank accounts, mobile wallets, or collected as cash. Customers can also fund their Whish Money wallets with cards as well as cash, expanding convenience for everyday users. This marks Mastercard’s first collaboration with a mobile wallet in Lebanon to facilitate remittances.
“Many people in Lebanon rely on remittances from their family members abroad to meet their basic needs. In this challenging economic situation, international money transfer services provide a vital inflow of foreign currency into Lebanon. Thanks to Mastercard Move, we can now offer fast, efficient and secure remittances to Lebanese people,” said Toufic Koussa, Co-founder and CEO of Whish Money.
Onur Kursun, Executive Vice President of Commercial and New Payment Flows, EEMEA at Mastercard, added: “Our collaboration will give Whish Money the reach, transparency and speed needed to scale its cross-border business and address consumer demand for sending and receiving funds internationally. Meanwhile, it will enable us to expand our payment network and introduce market firsts for inbound and outbound money transfers in Lebanon. We look forward to working together to improve the lives of Lebanese people and address their everyday needs”.
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According to World Bank estimates, Lebanon was the third-largest recipient of remittances in the MENA region in 2022, receiving around US$6.4 billion. Only Egypt (US$28.3 billion) and Morocco (US$11.2 billion) recorded larger inflows. For Lebanese residents, remittances are both a lifeline and a source of foreign currency, meaning the Whish Mastercard collaboration could soon prove to be transformative.
News
Nano Banana 2 Arrives In MENA For Google Gemini Users
Google brings its latest image model to Gemini and Search, adding 4K output and tighter text control for regional users.
Google has opened access to Nano Banana 2 across the Middle East and North Africa, pushing its newest image model into everyday tools rather than keeping it inside the exclusive (and expensive) Pro tier.
The rollout spans the Google Gemini desktop and mobile apps, and extends to Google Search through Lens and AI Mode. Developers can also test it in preview via AI Studio and the Gemini API.
Nano Banana 2 runs on Gemini Flash, Google’s fast inference layer. The focus is speed, but also control. Users can export visuals from 512px up to 4K, adjusting aspect ratios for everything from vertical social posts to widescreen displays.
The model maintains character likeness across up to five figures and preserves fidelity for as many as 14 objects within a single workflow. This enables visual continuity across scenes, iterations, or edits — supporting projects like short films, storyboards, and multi-scene narratives. Text rendering has also been improved, delivering legible typography in mockups and greeting cards, with built-in translation and localization directly within images.
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Under the hood, the system taps Gemini’s broader knowledge base and pulls in real-time information and imagery from web search to render specific subjects more accurately. Lighting and fine detail have been upgraded, without slowing output.
By embedding the model inside Gemini and Search, Google is normalizing advanced image generation for a mass audience. In MENA, where startups and marketing teams are leaning heavily on AI to scale content across languages and borders, that shift lands at a practical moment.
The move also folds creative tooling deeper into search itself, so that image generation is no longer a separate workflow. It now sits right next to the query box.
Nano Banana 2 Arrives In MENA For Google Gemini Users
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