Ali Tariq joins Wayl’s Board of Directors

Since 2014, Ali Tariq has led the Iraqi Private Banks League as Executive Director — the institution that represents Iraq’s private banks and speaks for them to the Central Bank of Iraq, ministries, and international partners.

His job sits between two sides of the same table. On one side: bank chief executives. On the other: the Central Bank’s directors and Governor, plus the wider set of stakeholders who shape how money actually moves in Iraq. He also sits on committees at the Prime Minister’s office, the Central Bank, and several ministries. He represents the League in local and foreign meetings, and the League’s work includes training bank staff, capacity-building programmes, and the annual Iraqi banking conference.

He is also a board member of the Iraqi–French Business Council, which puts him in the conversation about how Iraq’s private sector connects beyond the domestic market.

When the League talks about electronic payments, Tariq is often the public voice. In recent comments he noted that Iraq had issued more than 18 million electronic payment cards, while payment points had grown from around 7,000 to nearly 60,000 — a shift driven in part by government decisions requiring public and private institutions to collect electronically. That is the landscape Wayl sells into. It is also the landscape a board director should be able to read without a briefing deck.

Commerce platforms connect several kinds of services: product catalogs, orders, delivery, and checkout. Understanding how banks and payment providers work helps a technology company build dependable integrations and give sellers clear information about the services they use.

Wayl was built to help businesses launch stores, manage online sales, and connect with customers. Checkout is one part of that experience. Tariq’s background adds insight into the institutions and providers that support it.

The appointment brings that experience into decisions about product development, partnerships, and reliable operations. The aim is to help businesses keep selling as their needs and the services around them change.

We have written before that Wayl was designed as an institution that lasts, not a company that depends on a hero founder. Registration in Iraq and in Abu Dhabi Global Market, PCI DSS as a Level 1 service provider, SOC-aligned operations, and Visa certification are the public half of that claim. The private half is the board.

Ali M. Ismail and Mohammed Al-Hakim sit as directors. Tariq joins them with a different centre of gravity: the banking sector itself. Complementary seats are how a board works. Duplicate seats are how it becomes a club.

A commerce technology company built for the long term needs directors who understand the businesses using its products and the services those products depend on.

Most merchants will never sit in a board meeting. They should still care who does.

The company behind your store makes decisions about product reliability, integrations, security, and customer support. Banking-sector experience adds another perspective to those decisions, alongside the board’s technology and business experience.

Wayl’s job is to help businesses run their stores, manage online sales, and connect the tools they need. The board’s job is to make that work sustainable. Ali Tariq joins the board to help with that.