Randa Naboulsi, Group Chief Financial Officer of Monty Holding, was featured in an interview with Banking Executive Magazine, published by the Union of Arab Banks, in its August 2026 issue. The piece, titled "Built From the Inside of Crisis: Randa Naboulsi on Building Digital Finance Through Adversity," traces her three-decade career in finance and her role in building Monty Holding's financial infrastructure across its telecom, fintech, and financial services businesses.

In the interview, Naboulsi discusses how Monty Holding evolved from a self-funded business into a fully banked international organization, securing more than $40 million in institutional funding. She traces the roots of that transformation to Lebanon's 2019 financial crisis, when pressure on the traditional banking system changed the nature of the question the group was asking. "The question stopped being about digital transformation and became about continuity," she says. "That is when you understand what financial infrastructure is actually for."

She also addresses the perception gap that MENA-rooted businesses often face when seeking international capital. "The barrier is rarely your business model," she says. "Build the governance infrastructure around it, and the access follows." Naboulsi attributes Monty Holding's credibility with Tier 1 institutions in the UK and the Middle East to its early adoption of IFRS-compliant reporting, a full ERP migration carried out without operational disruption, and governance frameworks built ahead of what the market required at the time.

On financial inclusion, Naboulsi cites ESCWA data showing that nearly 65 percent of adults across the 22 Arab countries remain outside formal financial systems, and points to Monty Holding's MyMonty and MontyPay platforms as products built for that gap. "These are not products built for markets that already function well," she says. "They are built for markets where the financial system is being rebuilt, and where banks and fintech operators working together can achieve what neither can achieve independently."

Looking ahead, Naboulsi discusses the growth trajectory of the MENA fintech sector, projected by McKinsey to grow at 35 percent annually through 2028, and the role that deeper collaboration between banks and fintechs will play in reaching that potential.

The full interview appears in Issue 212 of Banking Executive Magazine, August 2026. You can read it here: https://unionofarabbanks.org/uab.digital/g6dlrwcli3n7/BE-Magazine---August-2026/28/

About Randa Naboulsi

Randa Naboulsi is Group Chief Financial Officer of Monty Holding, a global diversified group with businesses spanning telecommunications, fintech, technology, and financial services. With nearly three decades of experience in finance, she has led the group's evolution from a self-funded business into a fully banked international organization, building the governance and reporting foundations behind its institutional funding and international expansion. She holds an MBA from the Lebanese American University.