Qatar for Canada: A Fintech Giant’s Move
VoPay announced on its homepage that the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), due to this location choice, will become the company’s central hub for expanding digital financial infrastructure in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and other high-growth regions, while VoPay will continue its operations in North America, Europe, and Latin America from its regional office in Vancouver, Canada. The QFC itself announced this week its own relocation from the city center in Doha to Lusail Boulevard in the northern part of the capital.
CEO with regional roots
«Our decision to establish VoPay’s global headquarters in Qatar reflects a strong alignment with the country’s long-term vision for economic diversification and digital leadership,» said Hamed Arbabi, founder and CEO of VoPay. The Canadian, born in Iran, took his first steps as a tech entrepreneur during his youth in the Gulf and studied business administration at the American University in Dubai.
As part of this expansion, VoPay plans to hire more than 400 professionals in Qatar over the next three years—in engineering, technology, security, compliance, data, and platform operations. Founded in 2014, the company reportedly serves over 1,000 clients worldwide.
Demanded outsourcing partner
VoPay is not a typical payment provider for consumers. Rather, VoPay builds the «rails» on which digital financial processes run. VoPay provides an API-based platform that allows banks, large companies, fintechs, and government agencies to embed, control, and automate financial functions—without having to build complex systems themselves. Among others, VoPay has partnerships with Mastercard and the Bank of Montreal.
In payment processing, an API (Application Programming Interface) is a digital interface that enables the secure exchange of transaction data between applications and serves as a connection between online shops, smartphone apps, and banks or monetary transactions service providers.
Fintech yes, crypto no
VoPay’s expansion into Qatar was supported by Invest Qatar, VoPay said in its announcement. The company did not specify whether this support was financial or advisory in nature. Sheikh Ali Alwaleed Al-Thani, CEO of Invest Qatar, said, «This investment underlines our commitment to building a diversified, knowledge-based economy and positioning Qatar as a leading center for advanced financial technologies.»
However, the Gulf state tries not to participate in every fintech trend. Unlike the United Arab Emirates, Qatar’s central bank has banned cryptocurrency trading since 2018.