Bahrain Development Bank’s tijara digital platform is turning into one of the busiest tools for small business banking in the Kingdom. Recent coverage on BizBahrain reports that tijara has already processed more than sixty thousand transactions for over one thousand nine hundred users, with companies able to add unlimited profiles and access services at any time of day. This sits directly in the middle of Bahrain’s push to give entrepreneurs faster ways to move money and manage cash flow.

On the product side, tijara is positioned as the digital banking arm of Bahrain Development Bank, built specifically for startups and small and medium sized enterprises. The platform offers real time account information, instant payments and convenient local and international transfers, along with express digital loans that can be requested through one interface. A dedicated tijara call account lets founders open an account online and start using the platform within minutes, without visiting a branch, which saves time for teams that already do most of their work from laptops and phones.

BDB Group Chief Executive Officer Dalal Al Qais has framed these features as part of a broader shift to serve entrepreneurs on their own terms. In a press release announcing the online account opening feature, she described tijara as a way to provide “simple, efficient and accessible banking solutions” that match SME financial needs. Bahrain Development Bank The quote underlines a clear message to founders in Bahrain that the bank intends to move at the same speed as their invoicing and payroll cycles.

The macro picture explains why this segment is getting sustained attention. According to the Ministry of Finance and National Economy’s Bahrain Economic Quarterly report for the second quarter of twenty twenty three, small and medium sized enterprises contributed almost thirty four point six percent of nominal gross domestic product, equivalent to about one point four billion dinars. Ministry of Finance A recent research paper based on the Central Bank of Bahrain’s Financial Stability Report notes that by the end of twenty twenty four, loans to SMEs stood at roughly five hundred seventy three point eight million dinars, about eleven percent of total business lending, highlighting both progress and room for further growth.

National policy is being tuned around the same priorities. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce has launched a National Innovation Strategy 2025–2035 during Global Entrepreneurship Week at the American University of Bahrain, with targets to position Bahrain as a regional innovation hub and raise research and development investment to two percent of gross domestic product by twenty thirty five. At the same time, Bahrain has introduced an SME Fund valued at more than 185 million dollars, managed by Bahrain Development Bank with support from National Bank of Bahrain, Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait and Al Salam Bank, while the Labour Fund Tamkeen covers up to fifty percent of the profit rate to reduce the cost of capital.

For Bahraini founders, that combination of a live digital banking stack and fresh national funding is more than a headline. In practice, it means using tijara to bring all day to day transactions into one clean record, keeping statements and cash flow data organised, and then being ready to tap programmes like the SME Fund, Tamkeen support schemes or future innovation grants when it is time to add staff, invest in technology or look at exports. The ecosystem pieces are starting to line up, so the immediate next step for any SME is to go fully digital with its banking, reduce manual paperwork and keep financials transparent enough to match what banks and agencies already want to see when they say yes to the next round of support.