Manama felt like the Middle East’s financial lab this week. Fintech Forward 2025 wrapped up at Exhibition World Bahrain with the country making one thing clear — it’s done chasing fintech hype. It’s now building the infrastructure that could quietly power the region’s digital economy for years to come.
The two-day summit pulled in more than 2,000 people — founders, regulators, bankers, and investors — and ended with 38 new partnerships signed across payments, blockchain, and digital infrastructure. These weren’t ceremonial handshakes; most were practical collaborations designed to connect banks, fintechs, and regulators into one working system.
The headline deal came from Google Cloud, which teamed up with National Bank of Bahrain (NBB), Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB), Bank of Bahrain & Kuwait (BBK), and national payments operator BENEFIT to pilot instant payments using digital commercial bank money on Google’s Universal Ledger platform. Announced in PR Newswire, the collaboration could enable real-time settlements between Bahraini banks as early as next year — a first for the Gulf.
Ripple made its own splash, signing an agreement with Bahrain FinTech Bay to explore tokenization and stablecoin use cases, including plans to introduce its RLUSD stablecoin and custody services to Bahraini institutions. “The Kingdom of Bahrain has emerged as an early adopter of blockchain technology,” said Reece Merrick, Ripple’s Managing Director for MENA. “We look forward to laying the foundations for a thriving blockchain industry here.”
Tokenization turned into the conference’s favorite buzzword — though in Bahrain, it’s more blueprint than buzz. Dalal Buhejji, Executive Director at the Bahrain Economic Development Board, called it “the second step in fintech’s evolution,” predicting tokenized transactions will soon become part of everyday finance.
A UK delegation of 70 fintech companies — the largest ever led abroad by the UK Department for Business and Trade — spent the week in Manama, with three firms, Umazi, Ajyad & Valexa, and Aman by Themis, announcing Bahrain market entries.
Keynotes from Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the former Binance CEO, and Dhiraj Mukherjee, co-founder of Shazam, added philosophical weight. Both urged a pivot from disruption to integration. “Fintech doesn’t need to break banking anymore,” one speaker said during a panel. “It just needs to make banking smarter.”
Bahrain seals 38 fintech deals at Fintech Forward 2025