The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | June 14th

By Puja Sharma

The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements for Prime subscribers only.

The Big Story

Citi and Emirates NBD, a leading banking group in the MENAT (Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye) region, have collaborated to launch Citi’s first-of-its-kind 24/7 USD Clearing service in the Middle East.

This move makes cross-border USD payments available to Emirates NBD’s corporate and retail clients 24 hours end to end across its branch network.

The service will be available in UAE and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia branch networks, helping to remove barriers to the payment flow process in the region that stem from the different weekend and early afternoon cut-off times in the UAE for executing transactions. Emirates NBD, in collaboration with Citi, plans to expand the service to all its branches in the Middle East and across the globe, including partnerships with Emirates NBD’s third-party institutions.

Shahmir Khaliq, Head of Services at Citi, said, “Consumers demand instant payment capabilities no matter where they are in the world, and our collaboration with Emirates NBD is an important step in our journey to creating a multibank solution that is designed to deliver an end-to-end, ‘always on’ experience for participant banks and their customers. Our 24/7 USD Clearing service is a clear differentiator in the market. It demonstrates the full value of our globally leading cross-border payments and clearing capabilities, which enable our clients to make payments faster and more efficiently and transparently.”

Deals of the week

• Fin+InsureTech Finsall raises $1.7m in Bridge Round led by Unicorn India Ventures & Seafund
• Arthan Finance raises $6m in Series B to fuel expansion & technological growth
• SiFi, a Saudi spend management FinTech, raises $10m funding
• WealthOS closes £4m seed round with Barclays & Main Set
• Forwardly unveils ‘Pay by Credit Card’ for Small Businesses in the USA
• Regions Bank & BILL launch CashFlowIQ to optimize the payment and billing processes
• Mbank & Policybazaar.ae team up to streamline insurance solutions
• Avaloq & Comyno team up to launch securities financing solution

Be on the lookout for

In 2024, Sibos moves to Beijing, the first time China’s capital will host the event.

From 21 – 24 October, thousands of participants will gather at the China National Convention Centre to hear expert speakers debate the theme ‘Connecting the future of finance’.

Alongside the conference you can meet over 125 exhibitors from around the world and attend a host of networking events.

Beijing is a leading centre for almost every industry sector from finance, business, and economics to technology, science, education, research, culture, tourism, media and sport.

Home to most of China’s biggest companies, Beijing houses the largest number of Fortune Global 500 companies in the world, as well as the world’s four biggest financial institutions by total assets. Beijing attracts talent and investment from around the globe, and is a driving force in shaping the future of the global economy.