Founder & CEO, Digitinary
LinkedInFounder of Digitinary, focused on digital transformation, APIs, and Open Banking / Finance across the region's financial and enterprise companies.
Banks, financial institutions, and telcos all want to "build an Innovation Hub", but each means something different. Here is a clear definition, why APIs are its foundation, and what it needs beyond the developer portal to turn fintech partnerships into products and revenue.
Salah Abu-Msameh
At JO Fintech Festival 2026, the regulator put Open Banking at the heart of Jordan's fintech plans. Here is why Open Banking is the foundation fintech is built on, what it costs when that foundation is missing, and what regulators should get right.
Salah Abu-Msameh
A missing developer portal doesn't cost regulated institutions visibility, they're already part of the market by law. What it actually costs is time: weeks of manual onboarding, emailed API keys, and now, a widening gap with AI agents that expect self-serve access.
Salah Abu-Msameh
Locking down developer portals to control partner onboarding feels safe, but it quietly costs institutions time, revenue, and partnerships. Here is a better way to balance security and access.
Salah Abu-Msameh
In many of our meetings, we still hear "API" used to mean the gateway, and "the gateway" used to mean the whole management strategy. Here is the difference between the three, and why it matters more than it sounds.
Salah Abu-Msameh
Most large financial institutions see only about 60% of their customers use them for the full relationship. Here is why the answer is not a better product, but becoming an API platform, and why agentic AI makes that shift urgent.
Salah Abu-Msameh
Most Open Banking projects pass compliance on time by fixing the API layer. But the legacy middleware carrying that traffic underneath was never built for it. Here is why that gap gets expensive, and what the right architecture looks like.
Salah Abu-Msameh
Most institutions ask how to comply with Open Banking. The more useful question is how to turn it into a competitive advantage. Here is what mature markets like the UK already show about the payoff of building the foundation early.
Salah Abu-Msameh
Becoming Open Banking compliant is not the finish line, it is where a bigger challenge starts. Here are the three hidden bumps institutions in the region keep hitting on the way to Banking-as-a-Service.
Salah Abu-Msameh
Across our meetings with banks in the region, most still see Open Banking as a compliance task, not a growth platform. Here is what separates the banks leading this shift from the ones about to be left behind.
Salah Abu-Msameh
Fintech is not competing with banks, it is built on top of them. Here is what a financial institution quietly loses when it treats Open Banking as a compliance requirement instead of a growth platform.
Salah Abu-Msameh