MBME Pay Secures UAE Licence, Poised to Propel Cashless Economy Shift

Mohammed Fathy

Last updated 10-04-2026

4 min

MBME Pay secured a Category 3 licence from the UAE Central Bank.

The approval, “no small feat”, enables merchant acquiring and payment aggregation nationwide.

It provides end-to-end services, from onboarding to settlement and fraud controls.

Serving 3,2 million customers, it powers payments via 4,000 smart touchpoints.

The licence strengthens trust and supports the UAE’s push towards cashless growth.

MBME Pay has secured a Category 3 Payment Service Provider licence from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), allowing it to carry out merchant acquiring and payment aggregation services across the country. In a market where regulatory approval is no small feat, this move places the company among a select group of fully licensed payment providers operating under the central bank’s oversight.

For anyone building in fintech, you’ll know this kind of approval is not just paperwork, it can be a bit of a faff to get everything aligned, from compliance frameworks to technical audits. That said, it often becomes the foundation for serious scale. I’ve seen startups in the region hit a wall simply because they underestimated the regulatory side of payments. Getting that part spot on can make all the difference.

According to Abdelhadi Mohamed, Managing Director and Group CEO at MBME Group, the licence represents more than a regulatory tick-box. He described it as “a strong vote of confidence” in the company’s vision and capabilities, adding that MBME Pay is now positioned to support the UAE’s shift towards a cashless economy while raising the bar for reliability, security and customer experience.

With this licence in place, MBME Pay is authorised to provide end-to-end merchant acquiring services, from onboarding businesses to settling transactions. It can also operate as a licensed payment aggregator across multiple channels, offering secure and scalable processing for high-volume merchants, SMEs and government entities. In simple terms, it means businesses can rely on one regulated partner to manage the full payments journey, including integration, fraud controls and ongoing support.

The company operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of MBME Group PJSC and sits at the centre of a broader technology ecosystem. Through this setup, MBME Pay integrates APIs, financial services and digital platforms into one regulated offering. It supports payments across e-commerce, retail, services and government channels, areas that continue to see steady digital growth in the UAE and wider MENA region.

And believe it or not, the scale is already quite substantial. MBME Pay connects more than 3.2 million customers through over 4,000 smart touchpoints nationwide. Its infrastructure includes more than 770 proprietary APIs, powering services that range from smart kiosks and POS systems to online payment gateways. These are not small numbers, and they highlight how embedded the company already is in everyday transactions.

The timing also aligns neatly with the UAE’s broader digital economy agenda. The Central Bank has been tightening and refining its regulatory framework as part of a push towards financial inclusion and secure digital payments. MBME Pay’s new status supports government digitisation efforts, particularly around collections and service payments, while opening the door to deeper partnerships with financial institutions and technology providers.

On the flip side, the payments sector in the region is becoming increasingly competitive. New fintech players pop up every month, each promising faster onboarding or lower fees. I reckon long-term trust and compliance will matter just as much as flashy features. In that sense, being fully regulated could give MBME Pay a clear edge, especially when working with government bodies and large enterprises who value stability over hype.

For founders reading this on Arageek, there’s a quiet lesson here. Regulation may not be the most glamorous part of building a startup, but in fintech it’s definately the backbone. MBME Pay’s latest milestone shows how aligning infrastructure, compliance and ambition can unlock bigger opportunities, not just for one company, but for the region’s digital payments landscape as a whole.

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