Digital bank Revolut is launching its services in the UAE after gaining key authorization following a protracted approval process.

The London-based firm said that the UAE’s Central Bank had okayed its application for so-called stored value facilities and retail payment services, Bloomberg reports.

It now plans to build out its local operations before going live. Revolut has been planning to launch since it secured “in-principle” approvals in September last year.

Historically, it has been complex for so-called neobanks to enter the Gulf market, where traditional banks have dominated.

However, since the emergence of homegrown digital banks including Wio, Mashreq Neo and Liv — all tied to major UAE lenders — the market has started to open up.

London-based money transfer company Wise also recently secured approvals, and homegrown Islamic digital finance startup Fasset has been expanding its services.

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani Al Zeyoudi offered a glimpse today at how government planners are trying to prevent a repeat of Iran’s chokehold over Gulf shipping. “We want to make our dependency on the Strait of Hormuz close to zero,” Al Zeyoudi said in an interview with Bloomberg.

A key part of the strategy is the emirate of Fujairah, where the government has spent years building infrastructure to bypass the narrow waterway. ADNOC already operates a pipeline that can carry up to 1.5 million barrels of crude a day directly from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah, and is developing a second line that would further increase export capacity.

Al Zeyoudi said the UAE is also investing in rail links, ports and overland trade corridors that can move goods between Asia, the Middle East and Europe without relying on a single maritime route.

The aftermath of the Strait of Hormuz crisis will also be prominent at this week’s Saudi Arabia’s FII Priority Europe conference in Rome.

Opening the formal proceedings on Thursday will be PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who will be joined by Saudi Tourism Minister Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Princess Reema bint Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., and a full roster of government officials.

Among European leaders on the schedule are Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Italian Industry Minister Adolfo Urso.

Speakers include Anthony Gutman, Co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International; Andrew Cohen, executive chairman of JPMorgan Chase’s global private bank; Lord Franck Petitgas, Vice Chairman of Blackstone Europe; Sir Noel Quinn, Chairman of Julius Baer; Mohamed Alabbar, founder of Emaar Properties; and Gerard Inzerillo, Group CEO of Diriyah Co.

The White House’s UFC Freedom 250 fightfest came up repeatedly when U.S. President Donald Trump met with Middle East leaders at the G7 summit this week.

During one exchange, UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan mentioned Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts organization, telling Trump, “Dana White is an amazing guy.”

Trump also chatted about the June 14 event, which coincided with his birthday, with Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and French President Emmanuel Macron.

White has worked closely with Abu Dhabi since 2019, when UFC signed a long-term partnership with the emirate and began staging championship fights on Yas Island. He created the “Fight Island” bubble that kept the sport operating during the COVID19 pandemic, and has since overseen more than 20 UFC events in the UAE.

Benoit Roulon, a veteran oil trader at hedge fund Squarepoint Capital, has been hired by Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. to head its trading arm.

The move comes as ADNOC Trading plans to boost the volume it handles by two-thirds in the next few years as it undergoes a major international expansion, Bloomberg reports. It follows the UAE’s decision to quit OPEC in April, giving it more freedom to expand oil production and trading outside of restrictive quotas.

The UAE is targeting oil production capacity of 5 million barrrels a day, compared to 3.6 million barrels a day earlier this year.

At Squarepoint, which has headquarters in London and New York, Roulon has been leading a push into physical oil since the start of the year. Before that, he was head of crude oil trading for Gunvor and also worked at TotalEnergies.

ADNOC’s trading business has an office in Geneva and plans to open an outpost in Houston, Texas, next year.

The Strait of Hormuz may be reopening, but Gulf energy companies still face weeks, if not months, of disruption following the deal with Iran brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump that was signed on Monday.

Clearing mines from the waterway could take 40 to 50 days, leaving shipowners, insurers and energy producers such as Saudi Aramco, ADNOC and QatarEnergy navigating a slow recovery, Reuters reports.

Oil markets are already pricing in a recovery, with Brent crude falling below $83 a barrel after peaking above $120 during the conflict, while Middle East crude markets weakened on expectations that Saudi, Emirati and Qatari exports will increase.

Meanwhile, Qatar is preparing to restart production at QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s largest LNG export complex, which exported almost one-fifth of global LNG supply in 2025 before being idled for more than three months, Bloomberg reports.

The return of Ras Laffan would restore tens of billions of dollars in annual LNG exports and provide a boost to buyers in Europe and Asia that have been scrambling to replace Qatari cargoes since the effective closure of Hormuz.

The E1 electric powerboat racing league, backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, brought a celebrity showdown to Croatia this past weekend, with actor Will Smith’s Angola Westbrook Racing team beating NBA star LeBron James’ Team AlUla at the Dubrovnik Grand Prix.

Angola Westbrook took first place, while NFL legend Tom Brady’s Team Brady finished second, and James’ Saudi-backed Team AlUla came in third.

The victory extended Smith’s team’s lead in the championship standings ahead of the season finale in Miami in November.

The E1 Series, the world’s first all-electric powerboat championship, is gaining momentum as PIF scales back its financial support for LIV Golf after years of heavy investment in the breakaway tour.

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed awarded the Order of the Union to Martin Edelman, the New York lawyer and longtime adviser to Abu Dhabi’s leadership, in recognition of his role in advancing the country’s international partnerships and economic development.

A veteran real estate attorney and international dealmaker known as the UAE’s “Man in Manhattan,” Edelman has spent decades helping connect Gulf investors with major projects in the U.S. and abroad.

Edelman serves as general counsel and a board member of Abu Dhabi-backed technology firm G42, and sits on the board of MGX, the Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence investment fund that has backed OpenAI, xAI and Anthropic.

He also helped facilitate Abu Dhabi’s acquisition of Manchester City Football Club in 2008 and has long advised companies tied to the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund and Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s Royal Group.

Among those attending the decoration ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Thursday were Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi; Lt. General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior; Sheikh Khalid bin Zayed, Chairman of the Board of the Zayed Authority for People of Determination and Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Tahnoon, Adviser to the UAE President.

Mariam Almheiri, the managing director of Abu Dhabi investment platform 2PointZero, says countries that want to lead the artificial intelligence race must move quickly to build the energy and infrastructure needed to support it.

“People think that AI is a technology story,” Almheiri said at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum in Washington this week. “It’s not. It’s an energy story. It’s an infrastructure story and ultimately a competitiveness story.”

Almheiri, who is also 2PointZero’s vice chair, said governments should treat data centers as critical national infrastructure, comparing them to the ports and airports that helped drive economic growth in earlier decades.

Speaking on a panel at the energy conference on Tuesday, Almheiri argued that the challenges posed by AI cannot be solved by a single company or country and will require partnerships spanning energy production, supply chains, connectivity, critical minerals and financing.

2PointZero, part of the business empire of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE National Security Advisor, and one of Abu Dhabi’s fastest-growing investment platforms, is targeting those bottlenecks through its energy unit, ePointZero, Almheiri said. The subsidiary recently agreed to acquire U.S. gas infrastructure company Traverse Midstream Partners for $2.25 billion.

Almheiri, previously the UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, said the ability to move quickly will determine who wins the AI race, noting that major energy projects can take years to win approval and begin construction. “AI is moving at digital speed, but energy infrastructure is moving at physical infrastructure speed,” she said. “The gap is too big. We cannot wait seven to 10 years.”