About The Exchange
The Exchange is a Kuwaiti period drama and the first Netflix original series produced in Kuwait, set in 1987 against the high-pressure backdrop of the Kuwait Stock Exchange. It follows two cousins, Farida and Munira, who set out to break into the all-male trading floor and prove themselves as sharp, capable financiers in a world built to keep them out. Inspired by the real women who pioneered Kuwait's financial industry, the series turns the rise and fall of fortunes on the exchange into a story about ambition, family, and a society on the cusp of change.
Farida is a recent divorcee who, after thirteen years as a devoted homemaker, decides to become self-sufficient and provide for her teenage daughter on her own terms. She joins her cousin Munira, a quick-witted clerk who already knows the floor and its players, and together they navigate the skepticism of male colleagues, the expectations of their families, and the dizzying risks of a market that can make or break a trader in a single afternoon. Their partnership is tested by rivalry, pride, and the very different ways each woman chooses to assert herself in a room that does not want them there.
Lush with the textures of 1980s Kuwait, the series balances the adrenaline of the trading pit against intimate family drama, charting how money reshapes relationships and how two women redraw the limits placed on them. Led by Rawan Mahdi and Mona Hussain, with Hussain Al-Mahdi among the supporting cast, The Exchange was praised for putting Kuwaiti storytelling on a global stage and for its empowering, culturally grounded portrait of women claiming their place in a changing nation.
