We are live from Money 20/20 in Riyadh. Joining me is Nadine Jaffar, Chief Business Officer at Moyasar, a payments leader with over 16 years of experience across the GCC and EMEA. Nadine, welcome to Wall Street to Mena.
Thank you for having me.
What does Money 20/20 mean for Moyasar this year?
I have attended Money 20/20 as simply an attendee in the past three years. Being an exhibitor, a panellist, and a roundtable participant changes the view entirely. The energy is great. For us, Moyasar has been part of Money 20/20 ever since it started. Moyasar is a Saudi-born company — 11 plus years in the market. We have our own payment gateway and own more than 23% of all the online transactions of the Saudi market. And we can happily announce that Moyasar is expanding across the GCC — we started with Bahrain recently and the UAE. We have different business models in Qatar, soon in Oman and Kuwait.
You were in a roundtable on how financial institutions are winning trust and market share. What was the mood in the room?
I was very impressed by the calibre of the attendees. The conversations were very open and honest — mainly around AI and who owns the growth strategy in a company. The role of the board and the C-level people in translating the overarching vision to the team.
You were controversial in one of the panels. What did you say?
I am all for using AI as a tool. It is impressive — what was being done in six months can today be done in six weeks. Platforms are being built instantly based on specific prompts. But does AI really eliminate the role of us as humans? Does it really understand the interpersonal relationship we are currently having? Can AI be empathetic? In following instructions — fantastic, bring it on. But do not replace us. Do not give AI that leverage and that power.
You said the GCC is rising as a fintech market in its own right. What does that actually look like?
A lot of crises have taught GCC countries to start taking ownership of their own payment infrastructure. You see Mada in Saudi, J1 in the UAE, Maal in Oman, Benefit in Bahrain. The dependency on external parties without naming names is a very high risk. What I believe is a good learning curve from Europe would be to create a portable licence across the whole GCC. Today if you want a licence in Portugal, it is portable across the whole of Europe. Here you have different regulators, different licences, different requirements in each country — a heavy investment. If we want a unicorn, we need to loosen up the collaboration. Not the regulation — the collaboration.
Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Thank you for having me.
