Mashreq, one of the leading financial institutions in the United Arab Emirates, has taken a stake in NymCard, the only Banking-as-a-Service provider in the Middle East, to help grow the booming FinTech ecosystem in the UAE and support the next generation of innovators. This investment is part of a fintech fund that Mashreq has created to further Mashreq’s ongoing strategy to support the FinTech ecosystem in the UAE, fostering innovation through collaborations, with an aim to deliver a seamless and superior customer experience. It will allow fintechs, large and small, to launch their business propositions that need to have a payment card functionality through NymCard’s modern open APIs. The terms for the deal were not disclosed.

Fernando Morillo – Group Head of Retail Bank, Mashreq said: “The UAE has witnessed significant growth as a fintech hub, both from an investment perspective and from a burgeoning crop of tech-savvy innovators, and this shows no signs of abating. We recognize the crucial role the Fintech’s play in growing financial inclusion and the digital economy and will continue to identify opportunities, invest and support our partners to help drive this growth. We look forward to scaling up the FinTech ecosystem in the UAE in partnership with NymCard”.

Omar Onsi, CEO and Founder of NymCard, further commented: “We are very excited about this partnership with Mashreq Bank as it is considered a major milestone in our journey, enabling fintechs to launch and scale quickly within the UAE market.” “With this new relationship, NymCard has dramatically reduced the cost and time it will take for fintechs to get live in the UAE, with innovative payment cards that support their business models, leveraging our modern and open API-based infrastructure.”

The FinTech sector across the Middle East is growing rapidly with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30%, according to the Middle East Institute, who predicted that, by 2022, more than 800 FinTech companies from sub-segments including payments, open banking, regtech and compliance, smart lending, insurtech, blockchain, and cybersecurity solutions for the financial industry – such as anti-money-laundering, anti-fraud, identity theft, identity management, and others – will raise over $2 billion in venture capital funding.