Fintech Forward 2026 Closes in Bahrain With 60-Plus Deals and 2,900 Attendees
The fourth edition of the Kingdom's financial forum drew its largest sponsor and exhibitor field, with a Google Cloud ledger pilot at BBK among the announcements.
Tariq Benali Tariq Benali covers business and corporate news across the UAE and MENA for Anecdoted, tracking the deals, leadership moves and regulatory shifts behind the region's companies. tariq@anecdoted.com
The fourth Fintech Forward closed with more than 60 agreements signed or announced — memorandums of understanding, strategic tie-ups and other deals — and about 2,900 participants through the doors at Exhibition World Bahrain. Sponsors and exhibitors turned out in the largest numbers the forum has recorded. Announcements and signings were up 65% on the previous edition, and several of them grew out of introductions first made there, a pattern the Kingdom credits to public and private institutions working one pipeline rather than parallel ones.
Ledger pilot, payments, trade finance
- BBK put a Google Cloud Universal Ledger pilot on display, delivered with ARRAY Innovation, a portfolio company of the sovereign wealth fund Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company. The project tests digital ledger technology inside BBK's core banking operations, with tokenised payments and programmable settlement as the possible applications.
- Beyon and barq Group (Technologies Union) reached an agreement to fold Beyon Money's operations together with barq's fintech platform. Beyon is set to keep an economic interest in barq, subject to final documentation and regulatory approval.
- BENEFIT named National Bank of Bahrain the first participating bank and anchor banking partner in the Trade Finance Registry pilot, developed with Singapore-based trade finance fraud prevention specialist MonetaGo and Bahrain FinTech Bay. The goal is lower risk across trade finance.
- Bahrain FinTech Bay released the fourth edition of its Fintech Ecosystem Report, covering 2024 to 2026, which tracks the shift toward regulated execution and flags AI, tokenisation and cross-border payments as the open lanes.
Elsewhere on the agenda, Beyon Connect outlined plans for an AML Referral Programme, with AMAN Compliance Solutions joining as its first referral partner — a route for organisations to reach financial crime prevention and compliance expertise. Beyon Connect and BENEFIT signed an MoU to hunt joint fintech opportunities locally and internationally, pooling digital identity, payments, credit and information services along with data analytics. BENEFIT and Huawei agreed to explore cooperation in digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence. Kuwait Finance House – Bahrain expanded its existing partnership with stc Bahrain into digital solutions and integrated use cases, with cash management, reconciliation and trade finance in scope.
The National Bank of Bahrain Innovation Programme returns for a third edition with Bahrain FinTech Bay, keeping a presence at the forum for a second year running.
Talent, and the share of the economy
A Tech Talent Hub made its debut, with Citi, J.P. Morgan and KPMG taking part. The focus: Bahraini staff running work for global clients out of the Kingdom, and the career paths that keep supplying financial services and technology.
Bahrain EDB hosted the forum. The Central Bank of Bahrain, the Labour Fund (Tamkeen), the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority and Bahrain FinTech Bay supported it, under the theme "Finance in the Age of Intelligent Infrastructure".
Finance in the Age of Intelligent Infrastructure
The sector those institutions supervise is not a side line. Financial and insurance activities accounted for 17.6% of real GDP in 2025, the single largest contribution to the Kingdom's economy, backed by a regulatory framework led by the Central Bank of Bahrain, a skilled workforce and digital infrastructure built up over decades.
