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United Arab Emirates: Industry Structure & Commercial

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The UAE payments market is bank-anchored (Emirates NBD, FAB, Mashreq, ADCB) but increasingly fintech-driven, with a fast-growing card market (projected ~AED 565.5bn in 2025) and rapid wallet/contactless adoption. Acquiring and processing consolidated sharply in 2025 with the Network International–Magnati merger under a Brookfield-led consortium, creating the region's largest fintech/payments platform. The market also features exchange houses for remittance, BNPL leaders (Tabby), payment wallets (Ziina, Mamo), gateways (Telr, Checkout.com) and embedded-finance infrastructure (NymCard, TPAY).

Standing sub-brief · as of 7 July 2026105 words · last cycle 2026-06-27

Industry Structure & Commercial

Network International and Magnati merged under a Brookfield-led consortium, with regulatory approvals secured by mid-2025 and completion around October 2025, forming the region's largest fintech and payments platform, serving more than 250 financial institutions, roughly 240,000 businesses and over 20 million cardholders across more than 50 MEA markets. The merger's own deal value was not publicly disclosed, though the combined platform is reported to process more than $400 billion in total payment volume.

no periodic updates on record for this sub-brief

Sources and findings (4)
  1. T2https://www.network.ae/en/about-us/press-and-media/news/network-international-and-magnati-secure-key-regulatory-approvals-for-mergerretrieved
  2. T3https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/finance/uaes-digital-payments-boom-gets-a-boost-with-network-internationalmagnati-mergerretrieved
  3. T3https://www.mondaq.com/financial-services/1651280/payment-service-providers-in-the-uae-legal-frameworks-and-licensing-demystifiedretrieved
  4. T3https://www.thunes.com/insights/trends/powering-payments-in-the-middle-east-the-uaes-influence/retrieved