Comera Pay and AFS Team Up to Revolutionise UAE Merchant Payments

Editorial Team

Last updated 15-01-2026

3 min

Comera Pay launches a new merchant acquiring solution in the UAE with Arab Financial Services.

The platform supports all business sizes, mixing cards, QR payments, wallets and “Chip and PIN”.

Real-time tracking and daily settlement reports promise clearer visibility and simpler reconciliation.

AFS provides regulated regional scale, strengthening trust as merchants grow across markets.

The move signals a shift from shiny apps to deeper fintech infrastructure, with broader services planned.

Comera Pay has quietly but confidently entered the UAE’s merchant payments scene, launching a new acquiring solution in partnership with Arab Financial Services (AFS). For anyone who has spent time around small retailers or fast-growing startups, this move feels spot on. Payments are no longer just about a machine on the counter; they’re about data, speed and trust, all at once.

The new offering comes from Comera Pay, the digital payments arm of Comera Financial Holdings, itself part of Abu Dhabi’s Royal Group. Together with AFS as the processing partner, the solution is built to work for businesses of all sizes, from the corner shop testing contactless cards to larger enterprises juggling gateways, QR payments and mobile wallets. Chip and PIN is in there too, of course. What stands out is the operational layer: real-time transaction tracking, daily settlement reports and smoother reconciliation, which can save founders hours of what is frankly a bit of a faff.

I’ve seen plenty of early-stage businesses trip up at this exact point. Sales grow, payments pile up, and suddenly no one quite knows what landed in the account and when. So the idea of bundling acceptance with proper visibility feels like a step in the right direction. It turns a payment terminal into a business tool, not just a device that beeps.

According to Akhtar Saeed Hashmi, Managing Director and Group CEO of Comera Financial Holdings, the launch signals a push towards a more connected financial ecosystem, designed for a digital-first marketplace with simplicity, speed and security at its core. That ambition fits neatly with Comera Pay’s existing services, which already span digital wallets and remittances, and now stretch into merchant services.

On the flip side, partnerships like this only work if the plumbing is solid. This is where AFS comes in. CEO Samer Soliman described the collaboration as a blend of Comera Pay’s fresh thinking and AFS’s scale, pointing to faster and more seamless connectivity across the region. AFS brings decades of experience in merchant acquiring and operates under multiple central bank regulators across MENA, which, believe it or not, still matters hugely when founders start scaling beyond one market.

From an Arageek point of view, this kind of launch taps into a wider shift we keep seeing across the UAE and beyond: fintechs moving from shiny apps to deeper infrastructure. I reckon that’s where the real value is created. Backed by the Royal Group, Comera Pay now has both the credibility and the balance sheet to push further, including plans around SME lending, supply chain finance and loyalty tools, all sitting on one platform. Ambitious, yes, but not unrealistic.

The rollout in the UAE is just the first step. What comes next, if executed well, could make life easier for thousands of merchants who simply want payments to work, full stop. And in a region where cashless dreams sometimes stumble at the last metre, a solution that actually reduces friction is, well… definately worth watching.

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