🇸🇦 Payments in the Gulf and the Middle East

One region, three payment regimes

From a payments perspective, the “Middle East” covers three distinct blocs, with different constraints and different players. The Gulf (GCC) is a high-income region whose currencies are pegged to the dollar, and in several of its countries expatriates make up most of the population. Card acceptance is almost universal, and the state has taken back control of the infrastructure. Egypt and Jordan are middle-income economies where the challenge is inclusion. The tools there are the alias-based instant rail, mobile wallets, and a national card distributed through public-sector payroll. The third bloc, crisis-hit countries, covers Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and Yemen, where wallets and agent networks stand in for a banking system that cannot function.

The defining feature of the region, common to all its markets and rare elsewhere, is who owns the infrastructure. In most European and US markets, the domestic switch belongs to the banks or to a private operator. Here, the central bank is very often the direct operator (Oman, Qatar, much of the UAE) or a shareholder in the operator. Saudi Payments is a SAMA subsidiary, and Al Etihad Payments is wholly owned by the CBUAE. Where the operator is a bank consortium (KNET in Kuwait, BENEFIT in Bahrain), the switch keeps a near-monopoly on the market: the consortium brings together the country's banks, so any acquirer processing domestic transactions goes through it rather than through a competing provider.

Saudi Arabia: mada, sarie, SADAD

Saudi Arabia is the region's largest payments market, and it has also transformed the fastest. mada, launched in 2015 and operated by Saudi Payments (a SAMA subsidiary), is the domestic debit scheme. Almost every debit card issued in the Kingdom carries mada, co-badged with Visa or Mastercard for international use. The two brands on the card split routing based on where the transaction takes place. A domestic transaction must be routed over mada, and mada determines what the merchant pays.

The merchant service charge (MSC) on a mada transaction is capped by regulation at 0.80% of the amount, with a maximum of SAR 40 per transaction (mada documentation, acquiring banks). This dual cap drives the economics of card acceptance in Saudi Arabia. On large tickets, the absolute cap applies: a SAR 20,000 sale costs SAR 40 to accept, or 0.20%, a level no international scheme can match. On small tickets, only the percentage cap applies, and the merchant has no fixed fee to absorb on a SAR 20 purchase. Any pricing model imported from Europe runs up against this structure, starting with interchange++ and its fixed per-transaction component.

• mada, effectively mandatory for domestic acceptance, both in store and online: under SAMA requirements, online stores established in the Kingdom must process their transactions through the national system.
• sarie, the 24/7 alias-based A2A rail, needed for any instant collection or payout (marketplaces, gig economy, refunds).
• SADAD, the national bill payment system run by SAMA since 2004: presentment and payment of bills from government agencies, utilities, and businesses, available through every banking channel and licensed wallet. It is the rail for recurring and government payments.
• stc Bank (formerly stc pay), a wallet that became a licensed digital bank, with paid-up capital of SAR 6.35 billion, licensed by Council of Ministers Decree No. 671 of June 22, 2021. A textbook case of a Gulf telecom wallet turning into a bank.
• Tabby and Tamara, the Kingdom's two BNPL providers, both licensed by the central bank, which has no equivalent in most Western markets: installment payments have never been a regulatory blind spot in Saudi Arabia.

Tabby is the best documented of these players. The company is headquartered in Riyadh and holds licenses from SAMA and the CBUAE. In 2025, it claimed 15 million users and 40,000 merchants, with annualized volume of about $10 billion (company figures reported by the press, unaudited). It is valued at about $3.3 billion after a $160 million Series E announced on February 12, 2025. At a Gulf e-commerce checkout, local BNPL is shown before wallets, the opposite of the usual order in Europe.

United Arab Emirates: UAEPGS, Aani, Jaywan

The UAE runs the most extensive set of payment infrastructure in the region, and also the least understood. Attention goes to recent projects such as Aani and Jaywan, while central bank systems that have been live for 15 or 20 years still carry most everyday payments. Since 2023, the CBUAE has housed its new rails in a wholly owned subsidiary, Al Etihad Payments. The central bank still operates the legacy systems itself.

UAEPGS is the UAE's national e-commerce gateway, introduced by the central bank in June 2016. It lets a connected merchant collect payments directly from the payer's bank account. The customer authorizes the payment in online banking or pays with a debit card from a member bank. For the merchant, the benefit is a single integration covering many banks, and one consolidated settlement. The system is effectively an A2A e-commerce rail, run by the central bank seven years before Aani, and it remains the main channel for large billers and government agencies. A significant share of recurring collections in the UAE goes through this gateway rather than over the newer instant rail.

Aani is the UAE's consumer instant payment rail, operated by Al Etihad Payments under the CBUAE's FIT program. Payments settle in under 10 seconds. The service runs 24/7 and uses alias addressing, in practice the phone number. It also supports Request-to-Pay, bill splitting, and merchant QR. Ten institutions took part at launch, and the service applies a limit of AED 50,000 per transfer (CBUAE / AEP, 2023–2025). More than 12.5 million users were announced in 2025 (CBUAE, Gulf press). That limit determines how far Aani can serve B2B or real estate use cases. Larger amounts go over UAEFTS, the central bank's dirham gross settlement system.

Jaywan, launched in 2024, is the UAE's first domestic card scheme. It follows the same logic as Saudi Arabia's mada: bring domestic debit routing back home, and stop paying an international scheme for payments that never leave the country. Acceptance was pushed through at speed, and more than 90% of the country's POS terminals accepted Jaywan by the end of 2024. Outside the country, co-badging with Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, or Discover takes over.

Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman: four de facto monopolies

Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman are the four smallest GCC markets. In each, a single entity runs the switch, with no alternative. An integrator deals with only one technical counterparty, and has no fallback if that connection fails. What differs from one country to the next is who that entity is: a bank consortium in Kuwait and Bahrain, the central bank itself in Qatar and Oman. The difference in ownership shows in the pace of innovation, in pricing, and in how much statistical data gets published.

Himyan is Qatar's national debit and prepaid card, launched in 2024. It was first mandated for public-sector payments, and has been required for collecting government service fees since February 2025. It then expanded abroad: acceptance went live in Kuwait on December 18, 2025, and in Bahrain in June 2026 (QCB / QNA). The scheme started with government demand, then spread through bilateral agreements between neighboring central banks. This sequence replicates, at Gulf scale, the approach Meeza used nationally in Egypt, where the card was first distributed through public-sector salaries and subsidies.

Egypt, the Levant, and Iraq: the other half of the region

Outside the Gulf, payment policy aims to move a largely unbanked population off cash, rather than to repatriate payments that are already electronic. The tools differ accordingly. The national card is distributed through public-sector salaries and subsidies. The alias-based instant rail is built around a consumer app, and a physical agent network handles cash-in. Volumes grow much faster, from a much lower base.

Egypt is the most advanced market outside the Gulf. Meeza, the national card scheme, has been operated by Egyptian Banks Company (EBC) under the Central Bank of Egypt since 2019. It reached more than 43.5 million cards issued by June 2025. That pace of issuance would be impossible without the state channel: the card is distributed with public salaries, subsidies, and pensions. InstaPay, the consumer app for the IPN instant rail that EBC has operated for the CBE since 2022, claims more than 16 million users. It also reports more than 1.1 billion transactions worth EGP 2.4 trillion as of June 2025. Two less visible rails round out Egypt's system. EG-ACH, the bulk clearing house, which added multicurrency operation (dollar and euro) in April 2022, carries the country's payroll. The National Switch “123” is the national ATM switch that predates Meeza.

Jordan has the clearest retail architecture in the region, and probably the best documented. The Jordan Payments and Clearing Company (JoPACC), set up in 2017 by the Central Bank of Jordan and the country's 25 banks, runs five systems: the ECC (check imaging, 2007, rebuilt in 2023), the ACH, eFAWATEERcom (national bill payment, 2014, 75.43 million transactions in 2025), JoMoPay (mobile money switch, 2013), and CliQ (alias-based instant payments, 2020). Their net positions settle in RTGS-JO (2002). JoMoPay stands out because it makes Jordanian wallets interoperable by design, which is still the exception in the region. JONET is a separate system, the ATM/POS card switch, operated by Network International and connecting 100% of the kingdom's ATMs and about 80% of its merchants.

In Palestine, the Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) launched I-Buraq in 2025, an instant payment system covering three currencies, with Request-to-Pay and funds recall. Accounts are credited and notified in under 10 seconds. The launch is a direct response to the cash shortage in Gaza. The system joins e-SADAD (bill payment), the national card network, and the Quick QR service. Among providers, PalPay (Bank of Palestine group) and Jawwal Pay (Paltel, the first company to receive a full PSP license from the PMA) drive acceptance. In Lebanon, the banking collapse turned agent networks into the de facto payment infrastructure, led by OMT (licensed by Banque du Liban, the central bank, with more than 1,000 points of sale) and Whish Money. Whish is operated by TecFrac under a BDL license granted by Decision No. 19/21/22 of August 10, 2022, and has more than 1,000 service points.

In Iraq, Qi Card (International Smart Card, 2007) is a public-private partnership with Rafidain Bank, Rasheed Bank, and the Iraqi Electronic Payment System. It is both the largest issuer and the largest acquirer, and it also serves as the channel for public-sector salaries and pensions. It can process transactions offline, which suits areas with poor telecom coverage. Most imported specifications ignore this constraint, because they are written for markets with continuous connectivity, where issuer authorization is assumed to be available for every transaction. The telecom wallets ZainCash (2015, licensed as an EMI by the Central Bank of Iraq) and AsiaPay (formerly AsiaHawala, Asiacell) round out the landscape, along with the independent FastPay. In Yemen, Jawali (WeCash, with three local banks, supervised by the Central Bank of Yemen) serves as substitute payment infrastructure in a banking system fragmented by the conflict.

Arab cross-border rails: Buna, AFAQ, GCCNet

The region has three separate regional rails: GCCNet, AFAQ, and Buna. They do not overlap, yet they are often confused. Telling them apart determines which rail to use for a given flow, since they differ in geographic scope, purpose, and ownership.

Buna is operated by the Arab Regional Payments Clearing and Settlement Organization (ARPCSO), an independent organization wholly owned by the Arab Monetary Fund. ARPCSO was founded in 2018, and Buna has been live since 2020. The AMF has 22 member countries. Six currencies account for about 90% of Arab transactions: the UAE dirham, the Saudi riyal, the Egyptian pound, the Jordanian dinar, the US dollar, and the euro. The platform is designed in line with the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures and follows the G20 roadmap for cross-border payments. Buna remains the only regional rail that extends beyond the GCC, into the Levant and North Africa. A Cairo–Riyadh or Amman–Abu Dhabi payment has no other regional route, and otherwise goes through a correspondent bank.

The Gulf–South Asia corridor is the world's largest by remittance volume. Saudi Arabia sent $45.7 billion in 2024, second only to the US and about 5% of global remittances (IMF, 2025 Article IV). The UAE sent about $38.5 billion in 2023, then the world's second-largest source (World Bank). The channel remains overwhelmingly physical on the sending side (branches, cash, migrant worker pay through wage protection systems) and digital on the receiving side. Al Ansari Exchange reports more than 280 branches in the UAE and more than 3 million unique customers, and says it reaches more than 500,000 bank or agent locations worldwide. LuLu Financial Holdings operates at both ends of the corridor. The implicit benchmark for all of them is still hawala: a network of independent brokers who settle among themselves without moving funds across borders for each transaction. The FATF and the IMF classify it as an informal value transfer system, and Dubai is its main hub.

The shift from cash to cards

The shift from cash to cards is the fastest change in global payments this decade. It is poorly measured, because the starting point differs from market to market. In the Gulf, cash declined in an already banked market, and cards replaced cash without payers having to open an account. In Egypt, Jordan, or Iraq, moving away from cash first requires opening an account or a wallet, so the shift is a matter of financial inclusion, which is slower and deeper.

Cash on delivery (COD) means paying for an order in cash when it arrives, with the carrier collecting on the merchant's behalf. Its economics differ from those of payment methods authorized when the order is placed, and its cost never shows up in an acquiring fee schedule. It still accounts for a fifth to a quarter of orders, depending on the market. The costs it creates are spread across the whole chain: shipping without prior authorization, the collection fee, the delay before funds are paid out, and manual reconciliation against carrier statements.

• Cost COD in full, not as a fee: carrier collection + tied-up cash + refusal rate + return logistics + reconciliation hours. The total almost always exceeds the local card fee, which is capped at 0.80% in Saudi Arabia.
• Don't remove it all at once in a market where it still matters: conversion depends on trust, and the proven lever is offering a credible alternative (tokenized domestic debit, local BNPL, instant A2A), not taking the option away.
• Local BNPL is a direct substitute for COD in the Gulf: it serves the same psychological function (paying after seeing the product), but with authorization, traceability, and a payment guarantee for the merchant.
• Plan for seasonality: Ramadan and holiday periods shift retail volume and peak hours dramatically, including into the night. Capacity sized to the annual average will saturate.

PSP licenses: how to enter these markets

Payment service provider licenses are granted jurisdiction by jurisdiction in this region, with no passporting of any kind across it. There is no mutual recognition within the GCC, or between the Gulf and Egypt or the Levant. Each jurisdiction issues its own licenses, usually requires a local entity, and defines its own service categories, which don't map from one country to another. A PSP operating in Saudi Arabia and the UAE therefore holds two separate licenses from two regulators, SAMA and the CBUAE, with two sets of reporting obligations. These successive licenses are the largest item in a regional expansion budget, and entry plans routinely underestimate their cost.

Egyptian regulation distinguishes two statuses, PSO / PSP, with no direct equivalent in European terminology. A Payment System Operator runs a system; a Payment Service Provider serves customers. A single group can hold both statuses, in which case it files two license applications. The scope is broad: cash deposits and withdrawals on payment accounts, execution of transactions and transfers, and issuance of electronic payment instruments and acceptance channels. It also covers accepting, sending, and receiving remittances in local currency, payment initiation, account information, payment account services, and e-money issuance.

Elsewhere in the region, licensing regimes exist, but access runs more through institutions than through paperwork. In Bahrain, BENEFIT Company is licensed by the CBB and is the mandatory connection point, since it runs the ATM/POS switch, the EFTS, and the national wallet. Market access depends as much on integrating with the consortium as on the regulatory application. In Palestine, the Palestine Monetary Authority issues full PSP licenses, and Jawwal Pay was the first company to receive one. In Qatar and Oman, the central bank itself operates the systems, so authorization and technical connection are handled by the same counterparty. There are fewer counterparties, but the applicant also has less room to negotiate, since the authority that sets the technical requirements is the one granting the license.

• Sequence by market, not by region. Saudi Arabia and the UAE account for most Gulf volume, and Egypt for most volume outside the Gulf. The four small GCC markets open up faster through a local acquirer that is already connected than through your own license.
• A partner's license status matters more than its brand. Several operators in the region have recently changed their legal name, status, or ownership. Check authorization on the regulator's register, not on the company's website.
• Budget for reporting. SAMA and CBUAE periodic reporting requires a full-time local compliance function long before volumes can pay for it.
• *Plan for de-risking.* Several jurisdictions in the region (Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria) face long-term restrictions on access to correspondent banks. A business plan that assumes smooth dollar settlement in these markets should be tested with the settlement bank before it is presented.

What breaks in production

Recurring incidents in this region fall into three families of causes, and almost none involves cryptography or protocols. The first is a naming ambiguity copied as-is into an integration spec. The second is an implicit assumption imported from another market, about business days or terminal connectivity. The third is a single chokepoint whose criticality nobody had assessed.

The second family is implicit assumptions. The banking weekend differs by country. Peak weeks move with Ramadan, and traffic shifts toward nighttime hours. Several markets expect terminals to work offline, and Iraq's Qi Card was built for exactly that. In half the region, the check remains a key guarantee instrument: for rent, trade credit, collateral in the UAE, and guarantees in Jordan. Check image clearing systems are still running in each of these countries, even where volumes are falling. The UAE's ICCS dates from 2008, Jordan's ECC from 2007, Oman's ECC from 2009, and Kuwait's KECCS from 2015.

Card payment sovereignty means bringing the routing of domestic payments under national control, and this region is its testing ground. Over 10 years, mada, Meeza, Jaywan, Himyan, and TROY in neighboring Turkey have shown the same thing: a domestic card scheme gets built quickly when the state makes it a public policy tool. The levers are government procurement, salary payments, subsidy distribution, and mandatory routing. The Gulf adds a cross-border layer to this model, with AFAQ for wholesale settlement, Buna for the Arab world, and GCCNet for cash withdrawals. No other region has built all three layers so quickly.