News

Yango Showcases AI Robots Amid Rising Fulfillment Costs

The company is debuting the high-tech solutions at this year’s Seamless Middle East event, where attendees can experience live demonstrations.

Published

2 years ago

May 15, 2024

Nour Nasir

Yango

Global tech company Yango is debuting its AI-driven warehouse robotics and pick-and-place solutions at the Seamless Middle East event, which is currently running in Dubai (May 14-16). The technologies aim to combat the rising fulfillment costs that are burdening the e-commerce, retail, logistics, and manufacturing sectors.

In e-commerce, fulfillment now represents one-third of all operating expenses. Global giant Amazon saw fulfillment costs rise from 31% of net sales in 2021 to 36% in 2023. Yango’s solutions could provide a much-needed remedy to these escalating figures.

At Seamless Middle East, attendees can experience live demonstrations of Yango’s robotic pick-and-place hardware. This technology leverages “advanced computer vision” to allow stationary robots to perform like human operatives while still managing to move 800 items per hour.

Yango has also introduced stock-taking, goods, and pallet-moving solutions to streamline inventory management and fulfillment. The company’s robots can autonomously navigate warehouses and work together with other machinery to get tasks done faster and more accurately.

Also Read: Plans Underway For Massive Middle East Autonomous Freight Network

Alexei Filippov, Head of Global Business Development at Yango Robotics, said: “As fulfillment costs continue to rise, our warehouse robotics solutions come at a crucial time to help businesses not just survive but thrive. Our new robotics pick-and-place platform, mobile warehouse robotics solutions, and other technologies show Yango’s commitment to innovation and efficiency [and] we’re excited to debut [them] at Seamless Middle East”.

Yango is also showcasing further technologies at the exhibition, including autonomous delivery robots and the AI-powered White Label App and AI Shelf Monitoring System for retail applications.

To learn more about Yango’s solutions and their capabilities, visit the company’s stand (H2-G36) during Seamless Middle East, running until the end of May 16, or find Yango’s thought leaders at one of the event’s panel sessions.

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.