When Alexandre Soued and Helal Lootah left the UAE to study for their degrees abroad eight years ago, little did they know how central a role financial literacy would play in their lives. The high-school friends, who met at Dubai English Speaking College in 2011, admit they found it initially difficult to manage their money at university. Soued, who was attending the University of Virginia, turned to budgeting apps, such as Mint, to stay on top of his budget. Lootah, who was studying law at the University of Exeter in the UK, relied on a simpler way to manage his money, by tallying up receipts...