Shaping the Future of Payments

MENA Advisory was established in Doha in January 2020. Within weeks of opening, the global pandemic closed borders and disrupted the model that payments businesses across the GCC had relied on, senior expertise flying in from Dubai, London, New York and Singapore as needed. With that model suspended indefinitely, the demand for a payments consultancy with permanent, senior capability on the ground in Qatar became immediate and concrete. What began as a small founding team has grown steadily over six years to a practice of more than twenty professionals and subject matter specialists.

We are an independent international consultancy focused entirely on the payments and fintech sector. We operate from Doha, London and Istanbul, advising financial institutions, major retailers, travel management companies, acquirers, fintechs and government entities across the GCC, MENA and Europe. Our principals have held senior roles at card schemes, acquiring banks, issuing institutions and fintech businesses across three continents. We bring practitioner knowledge, not theoretical frameworks, to every engagement, covering the full payments value chain from strategy and product design through to licensing, regulatory compliance and technology selection.

We work with clients at critical points of decision: entering a new market, responding to a regulatory change, evaluating a technology investment, or building a new payments capability from the ground up. Our independence is deliberate, we carry no vendor relationships and no technology partnerships that would compromise the objectivity of our advice. Every recommendation we make is grounded in what is right for the client's specific business model, regulatory environment and commercial objectives.