The story of Bahrain Transformation not with Oil but with new innovations & Ideas.

Small in size, but international in thinking. Bahrain decided not to be the richest country, nor the biggest exporter. It decided to be the smartest country playing the money game.

How? It said: If we can’t compete in market size… we’ll compete in what the market wants: Smart Money.

Bahrain laid the first stone. Not a tower. Not a factory. But something strange called: SANDBOX.

What does that mean? Sandbox = testing ground. A company with a FinTech idea? Test it on people, but without harm. It’s like testing a plane… but without flying it over people.

And the beginning.. And here… we started hearing names: Tarabut Gateway, Rain, FLOOSS. All of them emerged from Bahrain’s “sand”.

The topic was not a coincidence. There was a carefully written scenario: Open Banking Laws (2018), Digital Currency Regulation (2019), Electronic Identity Verification, and even… an electronic cheque with the power of a paper cheque.

Intelligence. Bahrain didn’t just allow FinTech… it made it work within the system. Banks? They started providing APIs so companies could innovate from within the system… not from outside.

The Citizen. And amidst all these details, Bahrain was asking: How can the citizen participate? How can Bahrainis be the ones creating FinTech… not just using it?

The Citizen. This is where Tamkeen came in. And brought with it: General Assembly, Georgetown, Coursera. The result? Bahrainis are learning to design, program, and analyze bank data… by themselves.

And later… Even Citi Bank saw the game. It said: Since the environment is there, why don’t we set up a technology center here? And they will employ… 1000 Bahrainis within 10 years.

By the way… Do you know which sector contributes most to Bahrain’s economy today? Not oil. The financial sector = 19% of GDP. Oil? Less than 12%.

And payments? In 2023, Bahrain made more than 8 billion Dinars in digital transfers through the BenefitPay app. Which has more than 1.2 million active users. And is second globally in the number of digital transfers per citizen.

Reputation. And it didn’t stop at building companies. Or just laws. Bahrain was building a reputation. A reputation that says: ‘If you have a bold financial idea… try it with us first’.

Today? More than 120 FinTech companies within a smart digital system that Bahrainis operate, and global companies enter with confidence.

The Question?! And as you see the scene… you ask yourself: How did Bahrain? How did the smaller country manage to become the smartest platform?

The answer is simple: Bahrain didn’t bet on what was there… Bahrain bet on what could be.