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World’s Largest Metaverse Developer Opens Dubai Office
LandVault, the largest metaverse creator, is expanding its presence into the MENA region.
LandVault, the world’s largest metaverse developer, will expand operations to Dubai later this month as part of an ongoing strategy to boost its presence in the MENA region. The company aims to help local businesses gain a foothold in the expanding web 3.0 universe and sees exciting opportunities to bolster its client portfolio.
So far, metaverse developer LandVault has lived up to its name, creating and curating over 100 square feet of virtual space for a diverse range of organizations, including Mastercard, Standard Chartered, World of Women, Hershey’s, and many more.
The Dubai government’s Metaverse Strategy is one of the key reasons LandVault has been inspired to move to the region, as leaders plan to transform the Emirate into one of the world’s top 10 metaverse economies by 2030. Eventually, it’s hoped that in excess of 1,000 companies in the blockchain and web 3.0 spaces will be inspired to set up entities in the region, creating around 40,000 new jobs in the process.
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“We are excited to open our office in Dubai and to be a part of the vibrant tech community in the UAE. The MENA region is a key market for us, and we believe that our presence in Dubai will allow us to assist the region and explore new opportunities. We are also excited about the potential for the metaverse in the real estate industry in the UAE. We look forward to working with developers and real estate companies to showcase their properties in a new and innovative way,” says Sam Huber, CEO of LandVault.
Alongside developing the metaverse from its new Dubai office, LandVault will also deploy its technology to assist the UAE’s real estate sector. Developers will soon be able to showcase their projects in a way that was never previously possible, reaching a much wider audience with immersive and interactive property tours and even virtual showrooms.
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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.
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.
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