Egypt-based FinTech MNT-Halan is reportedly planning to take its business public in Cairo.
The initial public offering (IPO) could happen as soon as this year, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (June 24), citing sources familiar with the matter. Those sources said MNT-Halan is working with Citigroup and EFG Hermes on the listing and has met with investors.
The IPO would cover MNT-Halan’s Egyptian unit and is expected to value that business at between $900 million and $1 billion, the sources added. While MNT-Halan has operations in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, those businesses would not be included in the listed entity, some of the sources said.
The company was valued at $1.4 billion in a recent funding round, and achieved unicorn status in 2023 when it raised $400 million.
A spokesperson for MNT-Halan told Bloomberg no decision had been made on an IPO and that the company continued to consider strategic alternatives and possible listing venues.
The underlying case for FinTech in the Middle East, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year, “has been tied to rapid digital adoption,” especially in Gulf economies.
PYMNTS Intelligence research has found that the people of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are among the world’s most intensive users of digitally assisted commerce, with upwards of 50% of shoppers in some markets melding eCommerce tools and physical retail.
That behavior includes payments, with mobile wallets, cross-border transfers and embedded financial services evolving into standard commerce features.
“In Saudi Arabia, for example, 14% of consumers have already made cross-border payments, and digital wallets are widely used for both domestic and international transactions,” PYMNTS wrote. “But from an investor perspective, in the current environment, as rockets and bullets fly, and the world waits to see what happens with deadlines looming and reset toward Iran by the Trump administration, the issue is not simply volatility. It is the reclassification of risk.”
Jeff Barrington, managing director at Windsor Drake, told PYMNTS: “The Middle East FinTech investment thesis has not collapsed. It has bifurcated.”
That bifurcation is most obvious in cross-border payments. Corridors connected to affected markets are seeing stress, especially where correspondent banking relationships interact with geopolitical exposure. Barrington added that investors with positions in those markets “have had to mark down assumptions, not just on near-term revenue but on regulatory continuity.”
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