azakaw, the UAE-headquartered compliance platform for regulated firms, has been recognised in the Chartis RiskTech KYC Data and Solutions 2026 Quadrant Report, with a placement in Point Solutions, on its first submission. Chartis Research published the report on 19 October.
The report compares KYC data and solution providers from around the world, so regulated firms in the UAE and across the GCC can now see a platform built in the Gulf assessed alongside them.
Chartis Research is an independent research and advisory firm covering risk, compliance, governance and financial technology. It describes Point Solutions providers, the category in which azakaw is placed, as vendors focused on “solving specific risk management problems with domain-specific software applications and technologies”, and notes that they “are often strong engines for innovation”. For azakaw, that domain is the work of identifying, verifying and monitoring customers, and keeping a record of every decision.
“Azakaw’s positioning as a Point Solution in Chartis’ 2026 RiskTech Quadrant® for KYC Solutions reflects its clear focus on efficient digital onboarding,” said Philip Mackenzie, Research Principal with Chartis Research. “The platform’s modern architecture and integrations with regional identity infrastructure are differentiators that make it particularly relevant to Middle Eastern clients.”
Zohaib Awan, Group Director, Business Development at azakaw, said: “Chartis assessed the global KYC market and placed azakaw among its Point Solutions, a category defined by deep focus on critical risk problems. Our focus comes from j. awan & partners, where compliance officers and MLROs built azakaw and still answer to regulators for their own clients. Any firm choosing a KYC platform should ask who built it, and whether those people have ever defended a decision to a regulator. Our answer is yes”
Regulated firms across the Gulf, financial and non-financial alike, face rising expectations from regulators on how they identify, verify and monitor their customers. azakaw runs onboarding, screening, transaction monitoring and regulatory obligations in one place, in Arabic and English, with customer names matched in both. It can host customer data locally in each GCC country and, in Saudi Arabia, is integrated with Nafath, the national identity service, so firms can verify customers against official sources as part of onboarding.
Cristiano Machado, Deputy CEO and CTO of azakaw, said:
“Compliance teams told us their tools covered a check here and a check there, but nothing held the whole process together. So, we built azakaw as one platform, from client onboarding through screening and monitoring to the governance frameworks behind it. It follows each regulator’s rules, so it works the same way whatever the market. Chartis recognising that depth is a milestone. We will keep building azakaw as the technology arm of the compliance team, for the region or in whichever country that team sits.”
azakaw is headquartered in the UAE, with a team across Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the wider GCC region. The RiskTech KYC Data and Solutions 2026 Quadrant Report is available from Chartis Research at KYC Data and Solutions, 2026: Quadrant Update – Chartis Research
