Telco STC Bahrain has partnered with MENA Industrial Bank (MIB) to provide technology infrastructure to the financial institution.

The agreement covers the design, implementation, testing, enablement, and ongoing support of the bank’s scalable private cloud platform.

MIB is a Bahrain-headquartered wholesale bank providing specialized financial services across the MENA region.

Through this partnership, STC Bahrain provided “an integrated technology setup” compliant with the kingdom’s regulatory and data requirements for the bank’s launch last year.

STC Bahrain said that MIB’s private cloud environment is designed to support data residency, high availability, disaster recovery, and defense-in-depth cybersecurity.

"We are committed to empowering our partners with digital solutions that boost efficiency and accelerate their readiness to enter the market with confidence,” said Hesham Mustafa, chief business officer at STC Bahrain.

“Our partnership with MIB reflects our dedication to supporting national institutions in their digital transformation journey and providing advanced technological infrastructure that meets their ambitions."

Shamzani Hussain, MIB’s chief executive officer, said: “STC Bahrain’s private-cloud infrastructure gives MIB the robust, Bahrain-hosted backbone we need to develop with confidence.

“This partnership strengthens our cyber resilience and regulatory alignment and positions us to serve our clients with speed, reliability, and trust. The private cloud setup has proven to be an important stability factor in recent months.”

STC Bahrain is a subsidiary of the state-owned Saudi Telecom Company Group (STC). It was launched in the country in 2010 as VIVA Bahrain and rebranded to its current name in 2019.

The company is one of Bahrain’s major telecom operators and focuses on 5G infrastructure and digital services.

STC is actively expanding its presence across the MENA region and internationally, driven by the Saudi Vision 2030 to become a global digital hub. The company has 25 data centers operational and under construction, according to its 2024 annual report.

In February, the group won its bid to run Syria’s ‘Silklink’ project - a three billion SAR ($800 million) project to build a 4,500 km (2,796 mile) fiber-optic cable network, as well as several data centers and submarine cable landing stations in Syria.

Learn more about the data center market in Saudi Arabia and meet with other executives and experts in the region at the DCN Riyadh event next year.