Rising consumer spending, massive pools of capital and closer financial ties with the rest of the world is turning Middle Eastern countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia into attractive markets for fintech firms with global ambitions.
The Middle East presents the same opportunities that markets like Singapore did about eight years ago, says Michele Ferrario, founder of StashAway, a Singapore-headquartered robo-advisory firm and one of Fortune’s Fintech Innovators Asia. In countries like the UAE, there’s a big pool of people with money, but not a lot of investment options, apart from “not too friendly” banks, he says.
