UAE national and previous Visa VP officially joins as Managing Director of Circle Middle east

UAE national, with a Phd. in Chemistry from MIT, Dr. Saeeda Jaffar, is now at the helms of Circle in the MENA region as Managing Director of Circle Middle East and Africa. She leaves Visa to join Circle.

In her LinkedIn post, She states, “And so it begins: I have started at Circle! Financial infrastructure of the world is being redefined stablecoin supply is already at ~$300B, and the use cases are only getting started.

She notes her excitement, because stablecoins are unlocking at scale, with cross border payments settled in minutes not days, with treasury flows that are always-on, programmable payouts for platforms, creators, and enterprises and new rails for commerce in fast-growing markets.

But she sees that it is the chance to help build something generational. She notes, “But most of all, it’s the chance to help build something generational and to advance global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. You know that feeling? When you’re at the beginning of something you just know will define the next era Excited for what’s ahead!

During her tenure at Visa, she served as Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

Dr Jaffar also currently serves as a Member of the Board of Trustees at Kuwait University. She has previously served as a non-executive board member at United Arab Bank and Ishraq, a hospitality company. She has also served as an Advisory Board Member at the Bahrain Fintech Bay.

Over her professional career, Dr Jaffar has worked in the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. on a wide range of strategic, M&A and performance-related issues with clients across a range of industries, while specializing in financial services including universal banks, private banks, investment banks, private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds, government institutions and family-owned businesses.

Prior to joining Visa Inc, Dr Jaffar was the Managing Director at Alvarez & Marsal ME, the world’s leading turnaround and restructuring firm and held leadership positions at McKinsey & Company as well as Bain & Company, serving clients across the U.S., Europe and the GCC.

She has a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Boston University, where she was the valedictorian. She earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Circle received license from FSRA to operate as a money services provider

Circle as Circle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL), a global internet financial platform and issuer of USDC stablecoin, secured a Financial Services Permission (FSP) license from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of ADGM in UAE, to operate as a Money Services Provider in the International Financial Center. With the FSP license now in place, Circle will expand regulated payment and settlement use cases in the UAE for businesses, developers, and financial institutions.

This builds on Circle’s growing footprint in the UAE, including the Dubai International Financial Centre’s recognition of USDC and EURC as the first stablecoins under the DFSA’s crypto token regime earlier this year.