Leading crypto exchange, Binance has partnered with the Middle East’s biggest mall operator, Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Group to facilitate crypto payments at 29 Shopping Malls and 13 Hotels within its conglomerate.
The two companies will collaborate on multiple crypto and blockchain projects in a strategic partnership that could be beneficial to the shopping malls, hotels, cinemas, hypermarkets and retail stores in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
The MAF Group is known for funding major developments such as the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai, Mall of Oman in Muscat and the Mall of Egypt in Cairo.
The Group also has the exclusive license to operate more than 375 Carrefour stores in 17 countries employing more than 37,000 people and serving 750,000 customers per day across the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao is optimistic about the partnership and is quoted saying, “Majid Al Futtaim is one of the most prestigious businesses in the Middle East and has millions of customers every year.” He also tweeted,
The CEO at Majid Al Futtaim, Alain Bejjani said, “We are delighted to be partnering with global Web3 leader, Binance on the new frontiers of customer engagement and experience and look forward to working in tandem to evolve the third generation of web technology, develop strong capabilities and deliver innovation and world-class omnichannel experiences to our customers.”
According to the Binance website, Binance Pay which supports more than 40 cryptocurrencies will be integrated to allow the millions of customers at Majid Al Futtaim’s various locations to pay with cryptocurrencies in line with appropriate laws and regulations.
Binance Pay is a contactless, borderless, and secure user-to-user gateway on the Binance platform that allows users and merchants around the world to use crypto without incurring special handling fees for using crypto.
An investor presentation from February showed that in 2021, MAF Group recorded 175 million visitors across its different mall locations in the 17 countries.
“Integrating Web3 technologies will give its customers access to innovative new ways to engage with its brands and provide new ways to pay,” Zhao remarked.
Zhao commended MAF Group for being a trailblazer in bridging the gap between the physical and Web3 experiences adding that through partnerships like these, we will see the innovative use-cases that come to define the next digital era emerge.
The two companies will also collaborate on other projects including listing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Binance’s marketplace and creating a digital wallet infrastructure to hold cryptocurrencies from multiple platforms.