How Tap Payments helps businesses scale across MENA

Tap Payments, founded in 2014 to simplify billing and payments for businesses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), has received the UAE Central Bank's Full Payment Services licence. A major milestone for the company, the licence reaffirms that it operates at the highest level of regulatory trust and security in one of the region’s most advanced financial markets.

But this isn’t just a stamp of approval, says Ahmad AlWazzan, Managing Director – UAE at Tap Payments. “It gives us the ability to expand our products, launch new services faster, and serve UAE businesses with more depth,” he explains. “From onboarding to payouts, everything becomes simpler, faster, and fully compliant.

“For medium and large businesses, this means a payment partner that understands both local regulations and regional ambitions."

AlWazzan believes that with the Full Payment Services licence, Tap Payments is better positioned to help UAE companies scale across the GCC and beyond.

Here are the excerpts from an interview with AlWazzan.

How has the company's vision evolved since its inception, and what are the current strategic priorities?

We started by serving small and medium businesses. Today, we work with companies of every size, including flydubai, Wego, and Insurance Market in the UAE, and regional leaders like TikTok, Talabat and Careem. We also power payments for some of the largest marketplaces in the GCC.

Our mission has grown with our customers. What began as a way to simplify online payments for startups has become a regional infrastructure that helps businesses scale across MENA. We’re not just helping companies accept payments. We’re enabling them to expand, stay compliant, and serve more customers across borders.

Right now, our priorities are focused on three areas.

First, we’re deepening partnerships with regulators in each market.

Second, we’re investing in technology that makes payments faster, safer, and easier to manage.

Third, we’re supporting businesses across the entire GCC that want to grow beyond their local markets.

Our role has changed, but the goal remains the same. Make payments simple, secure, and built for the way businesses operate in MENA.

With a diverse team of more than 200 payment and technology experts from more than 20 nationalities, how does Tap Payments leverage this diversity to drive innovation and better serve its clients?

Our diversity isn’t just a statistic. It’s a competitive edge.

With a team spanning more than 20 nationalities, we bring different perspectives to every product we build and every challenge we solve. This matters in a region as complex and varied as MENA, where each country has its own payment habits, regulations, and customer expectations.

We’ve seen first-hand how cultural and technical diversity helps us move faster and build smarter. Whether it’s understanding why mada is essential in Saudi Arabia, or how the checkout behaviour differs in the UAE, our team brings lived experience to the table. That leads to products that feel intuitive, local, and ready to use.

For our clients, that means payment products that work the way their customers expect them to. It means faster rollout, embedded support, and more relevant features. That’s how we turn diversity into real business value.

Tap Payments operates in all GCC countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. How does the company ensure consistent service quality across these diverse markets, and what challenges have been encountered in this expansion?

Consistency starts with how we’re built.

We operate as one company, but with local teams in every GCC country. That allows us to stay close to our merchants, navigate each country’s regulations with confidence, and respond quickly to changing market needs.

Each market has its own challenges such as different compliance rules, banking systems, and customer behaviours. We’ve addressed this by creating cross market teams, while still maintaining local relevance with local presence in GCC countries. This allows us to offer a consistent payment experience across the region, while maintaining compliance with local regulations.

For businesses expanding across borders, this consistency is critical. It means they don’t have to manage five different providers or worry about licensing gaps. With Tap, they get one infrastructure, one integration, and one partner that understands the region inside and out.

The company supports more than 20+ payment methods, enabling acceptance of local, regional, and global payments online. How does Tap Payments decide which payment methods to integrate, and how do you address the varying preferences across different markets?

We don’t add payment methods for the sake of numbers. We add what our merchants and their customers actually use.

Every integration starts with data. We look at payment trends in each market, listen to merchant feedback, and track consumer preferences. In the UAE, for example, Apple Pay adoption has grown rapidly. In Saudi Arabia, mada remains essential. In Kuwait, you can’t operate without KNET. We move fast to support what matters locally.

Our goal is to give every business the right mix of options, so their customers can pay how they prefer, whether it’s a regional method like Benefit or a global one like PayPal or Mastercard. That flexibility helps businesses convert more sales and expand into new markets with confidence.

A good example is our work with Mastercard on Click to Pay. It gives shoppers across MENA a faster, more secure checkout. That translates to better conversion rates for businesses. We focus on integrations like this because they create real impact, not just technical compatibility.

Serving more than 120,000 businesses, from start-ups to large enterprises, how does Tap Payments tailor its services to meet the unique needs of different business sizes and industries?

At Tap, we’ve designed our products to scale with our merchants.

Smaller businesses often just need to get paid quickly. So we give them simple tools like payment links and our billing app, with no setup headaches and no need for a website. They can create and send invoices, manage their accounts, and start collecting payments in minutes.

Larger businesses have more complex needs. They need automated billing, powerful APIs, and support for recurring payments and multi-market operations. That’s where our infrastructure steps in. We offer full integration, advanced reporting, and support for more than 20 local and global payment methods—so businesses can operate at scale and still stay close to their customers.

We also serve a wide range of industries, from retail and F&B to travel, logistics, and insurance. Whether you’re a startup in Sharjah or a regional brand operating across five countries, we give you the tools, support, and regulatory clarity to grow without barriers.

With clients in over 15 countries, what strategies does Tap Payments employ to navigate the regulatory and compliance challenges inherent in cross-border payment processing?

Regulatory alignment isn’t just part of our operations. It’s built into our foundation.

We work closely with central banks and financial regulators across MENA. That’s how we’ve secured full regulatory approvals in the GCC market. This lets our merchants operate across borders with confidence, knowing every transaction is fully compliant from end to end.

To manage complexity, we have dedicated compliance teams for each country. They monitor changes, handle local reporting requirements, and make sure we stay ahead of every regulation, from KYC and AML to data privacy and fund settlement.

We also invest in infrastructure that meets the highest global standards, including PCI-DSS certification, so our clients don’t need to worry about technical or legal gaps when expanding regionally.

For large businesses, this means fewer barriers to entry, faster go-to-market timelines, and a partner who understands both the rules and the opportunities.

Tap Payments has formed strategic partnerships with industry giants like Mastercard and PayPal. How do these collaborations enhance your service offerings, and what future partnerships are you considering to further expand your capabilities?

We partner with global and regional leaders when it helps our merchants grow.

Our collaboration with Mastercard helped in bringing Click to Pay to MENA. It gives customers a faster and more secure checkout experience, which means better conversion rates for businesses. With PayPal, we’ve made it easier for merchants in the UAE and across the region to sell to international customers without adding operational complexity.

These partnerships go beyond integration. They unlock growth, reach, and speed for the businesses we serve.

We’re also working with regulators, local banks, and government entities to make sure our payment infrastructure is aligned with the systems and standards that matter in each market.

As we look ahead, we’re exploring new collaborations in open banking, risk management, and alternative payments. The goal is to keep delivering tools that make payments smarter, safer, and better for business.

The MENA ecommerce market is rapidly growing, with a tech-savvy, youth-led population. How is Tap Payments positioning itself to capitalise on this growth, and what trends do you foresee shaping the future of digital payments in the region?

MENA’s digital economy is growing fast, and we’re building the infrastructure behind it.

From social commerce to subscription businesses and large online marketplaces, we support the payment flows that power this new wave of digital commerce.

What sets us apart is our combination of local expertise and regional reach. We’re deeply embedded in each market, with the licences and partnerships needed to operate securely and efficiently. As more businesses in the UAE look to grow across the GCC and beyond, they need a partner that can make payments work everywhere from day one.

Looking ahead, we’re watching three big trends. First, the shift toward cashless economies, led by initiatives like the Dubai Cashless Strategy. Second, the growing use of AI to streamline operations, speeding up merchant onboarding, enabling real-time fraud detection, and powering embedded support that scales. And third, the expanding role of payments in driving customer loyalty and better online experiences.

We’re not just reacting to these changes. We’re building the products that will shape what comes next.

To learn more, visit Tap.company