Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (Mumtalakat), the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Bahrain, and ARP Group announced on November 1, 2026, a partnership to establish an AI-native and blockchain-enabled wholesale bank headquartered in Bahrain. The venture holds in-principle approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain and will begin regulated activities only after securing final authorisation.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of Gateway Gulf 2026. The proposed bank is meant to support institutional clients whose banking needs are regional and international in scope, and Mumtalakat said the venture pairs its long-term investment approach with ARP’s experience in institutional finance and digital financial infrastructure.
Target Clients and Operating Design
The bank’s intended clientele spans regulated financial institutions, payment companies, and businesses operating across borders. The partners said the goal is to make banking simpler for clients whose needs extend across multiple markets and currencies, with technology lowering the complexity and cost of serving them.
According to the announcement, the bank’s design places artificial intelligence across its operations, with programmable services that connect directly into clients’ systems through APIs. Human oversight, governance, and risk controls would support those services, and products would be rolled out in phases shaped by engagement with prospective clients.
The Partners Behind the Venture
Mumtalakat was established on June 29, 2006, under Royal Decree No. 64 of 2006, and is registered with Bahrain’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce as a closed Bahrain Shareholding Company, according to the fund’s corporate governance page. Its board members are appointed by the chairman of the Bahrain Economic Development Board.
ARP Group is the holding company of ARP Global Capital and ARP Digital. According to the announcement, ARP Digital was co-founded by Yusuf Alireza alongside Abdulla and Abdulaziz Kanoo; ARP Digital describes the brothers on its website as fifth-generation twins from the GCC’s 135-year-old Kanoo Group.
ARP Digital is licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain as a Capital Market-Crypto Assets Service Provider (Cat3), according to ARP Digital’s website, which displays the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) alongside that license. Its product line includes Convert, an institutional over-the-counter digital asset liquidity desk operating around the clock with bilateral settlement in fiat or stablecoin; Send, covering remittance, corridor settlement, and on-ramp and off-ramp flows; and Receive, a collections and payouts product that converts digital assets to fiat for settlement to a client’s bank account. The company says every client is assigned a named relationship manager with direct phone and WhatsApp access, in addition to API and dashboard tools.
The company reports more than $3.5 billion in volume processed, a client base above 450, four or more extended licenses, 4x volume growth in 2025, 99.99% platform uptime, and support for more than 10 currencies. It describes Convert as the only CBB-licensed desk of its kind in the GCC.
Alireza is founder, chief investment officer, and chief executive officer of ARP Global Capital. Before establishing ARP, he was chief executive of Asian commodity trading firm Noble Group from 2012 to 2016, after 20 years at Goldman Sachs in New York, London, and Hong Kong, where he ultimately managed the firm’s Asia Pacific sales, trading, and investing businesses before becoming co-president for the region and a member of its Global Management Committee, according to ARP Global Capital’s leadership page. The firm states that he became the first Arab partner in Goldman Sachs’ history in 2004 and the only Arab promoted to its Global Management Committee, which he joined in 2011.
He serves as non-executive chairman of ARP Digital and as a board member at Bahrain’s Economic Development Board, according to Alireza’s ARP Digital biography, which describes ARP Global Capital as a multi-asset hedge fund ranked in the top quartile globally and recognized with a EuroHedge Awards 2025 award in the Discretionary Macro category.
Executive Statements
Shaikh Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, chief executive officer of Mumtalakat, said financial services have long been a cornerstone of Bahrain’s economy and that the fund’s role, as the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, is to invest in opportunities that strengthen the sector’s competitiveness and support its continued evolution. He said the partnership brings together an experienced institutional team with Bahrain’s well-established regulatory and business environment, and that the investment reflects a commitment to long-term value for Bahrain through support for strategic sectors, the creation of high-quality opportunities for Bahraini talent, and sustainable returns tied to the Kingdom’s economic growth.
Alireza said institutional clients with complex cross-border needs still face fragmented banking services. “We see an opportunity to combine a regulated bank’s balance sheet and institutional relationships with blockchain enabled technology and AI designed into its operating model from the outset, making these clients more efficient to serve,” he said. He added that Bahrain’s established financial sector and regulatory experience provide a strong foundation for the venture and that, together with Mumtalakat, ARP aims to build a bank supporting clients across the Gulf and international markets.
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