Denys Boiko on fintech opportunities abound across the GCC

Despite 2024 having seen a relative downturn of funding activity in fintech sectors globally, there is clear evidence of strong opportunities for innovators and investors in the GCC region.

“Activity across the fintech investment landscape internationally has slowed somewhat relative to the post-pandemic boom,” explains Denys Boiko, a fintech investor and founder of BDG Quantum Marketing Research.

“But—for countries in the GCC specifically—the evolutions and advancements in these settings never lost their pace and the region’s fintech sectors are exceptionally well placed for further growth.”  

A thriving fintech landscape

According to figures from S&P Global, there was a 20 per cent decline in both deal values and volumes across the worldwide fintech funding sector over the course of 2024. Some US$7 billion worth of fintech funding is still being deployed globally every quarter but relative to recent years, rates of investment in the field are on a downward trend.  

However, as S&P Global noted in its latest research report on the subject, the fintech landscape is always a “complex interplay of growth and decline across various verticals” and geographies. “As ever, in 2025, we can expect some fintech sectors and regions to thrive while others struggle to maintain their momentum,” Denys Boiko concurs.  

Viewed through a geographical lens, fintech investments across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) bucked broader trends with an 11 per cent increase in funding last year. While from a sector-specific perspective, ‘banking technology’ doubled its funding rates to $6 billion in 2024, and ‘digital lending’ markets held their investment levels steady at precisely the same $6 billion figure.  

Leading the way on digital lending

Several major nations within the GCC region have made explicit their desire to reorient their economies away from a reliance on energy sectors, perhaps most notably in Saudi and in the UAE but in other parts of the region as well.

That strategic focus has led to an emphasis—among lawmakers, business leaders and other influential figures—on encouraging growth within enterprise arenas perceived to offer the greatest scope for rapid and significant expansion. Consequently, regulatory frameworks relating to banking sectors and financial markets in the GCC have been freed up in important ways to create a broadly welcoming ecosystem for fintech innovators.

Digital-only neobanks have been among the beneficiaries of the region’s rapidly evolving fintech landscape, with the likes of D360 and Zand Bank now offering an array of user-friendly, easily accessible banking tools and lending solutions to their digital-savvy and innovation-ready consumers.

E-wallets and BNPL services

Ongoing fintech evolutions in GCC markets are also helping to encourage the use of digitised ‘e-wallets’ and cashless payment solutions in a growing variety of everyday contexts, both online and in person. Indeed, local players such as PayIt, Careem Pay, and Etisalat Wallet are all competing strongly in e-wallet, cashless transaction markets across the region even against international market leaders such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

Elsewhere, ‘open finance’ and the newly authorised, expansive integration of personal financial data is expanding access to increasingly powerful and helpful banking tools of various kinds, to which GCC consumers are proving highly receptive.

There have also been conspicuous advances within the realms of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) in GCC countries and those markets are booming, with consumers across the region becoming increasingly comfortable with using mobile apps to pay for retail purchases via interest-free instalments. Leading the way in these respects are the likes of Tamara, a fast-growing Saudi-based BNPL operator now with over six million customers, and  Tabby, a Dubai-founded fintech unicorn.

Earned wage access

Another fintech sector within which there is clear evidence of both momentum and growth potential in the GCC is that of ‘earned wage access’ or EWA, wherein individual consumers can use digital finance platforms to gain early access to their own wages. The banking giant JPMorgan and others have highlighted EWA as potentially a major contributor to financial inclusion in many parts of the world in the coming years.

In the UAE, Now Money has established itself as a major regional player in the context of digital payroll services, with its mobile apps aimed primarily at businesses with low-income workers. Elsewhere, EWA services, like those of Abhi, which entered the UAE market in partnership with Mastercard in 2024, are providing financial flexibility to individual workers and helping employers enhance the overall wellbeing and productivity rates within their workforces.

Now Money secured a $4 million investment in support of its expansion and technological advancement efforts in 2024, with the global consultancy firm PwC describing the company as having “revolutionised banking for the unbanked” and become “one of the GCC’s most successful fintechs”. Looking more broadly at the global picture, analyst expectations are that the EWA software market could be worth close to $40 billion by the end of the decade, with the impacts of that expansion sure to be seen across the GCC countries.

The expert’s perspective…

Denys Boiko expects to see the region’s fintech sector to go from strength to strength in the coming quarters and beyond.

“The GCC is now well-established as a hotbed of fintech investment and innovation, with consumer demand driving the growth of sectors such as those built around mobile banking solutions, digital credit systems and EWA software tools.

“With regulatory frameworks in major regional economies generally proving adaptable, inclusive and accommodating, it’s little wonder perhaps that the GCC’s fintech startup sector continues to thrive and expand, even if the global funding picture looks a little different and remains relatively subdued.

“I fully expect AI and machine learning innovations to feed into and further accelerate many of the fintech trends we can already see having a huge impact across the region. I certainly see ambitious companies with a presence in the GCC wanting to use the latest tech to help them tap into the growth potential that’s evident in those markets.

“Looking ahead to the rest of 2025 and beyond, I’ve no doubt we will continue to see startups doing well in GCC markets, particularly if they can find ways to meet demand for ever more intuitive mobile banking experiences, seamlessly convenient digital payment and credit solutions, and increasingly accessible and flexible EWA offerings.”

According to Denis Boiko, the combination of regulatory openness and strong consumer demand makes the GCC one of the most promising regions globally for fintech innovation over the next three to five years, particularly as governments continue to prioritise digital transformation and private investment flows into the sector.