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Spare has partnered with Tabadulat, a UAE-based Shariah-compliant online brokerage, to integrate its Pay-by-Bank solution into Tabadulat’s investment platform, the companies announced on 12 August 2026. The partnership lets Tabadulat’s investors move money between their bank and investment accounts over regulated Open Finance rails, replacing card-based funding.
What the integration actually does
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| What’s new | Pay-by-Bank funding and withdrawals built into Tabadulat’s investment platform |
| How it works | Regulated account-to-account (A2A) payments over Open Finance rails, via a single API integration |
| What it replaces | Card-based funding for deposits and withdrawals |
| Compliance layer | Spare verifies that deposit and withdrawal bank accounts match a customer’s verified identity, reducing fraud risk and supporting verified-source-of-funds requirements |
| Speed | Near real-time deposits and withdrawals, instead of card-processing delays |
Dalal AlRayes, Spare’s co-founder and CEO, said:
“We’re seeing Open Finance move beyond traditional payment use cases into wealth, trading, and digital asset platforms. Pay by bank can improve the funding experience where speed and verified source of funds matter.”
Samy Mohamad, Tabadulat’s co-founder, said,
“The integration will help our investors move funds directly between their bank and investment accounts with greater speed and ease, while strengthening the safeguards behind every transaction.”
Who Tabadulat actually is
Tabadulat was founded in 2024 by Samy Mohamad, formerly of Morgan Stanley; Ali Abdulkadir Ali, formerly of Wahed Invest; and Ahmed Said, formerly of Nomo Bank. The platform offers Shariah-compliant US stocks with 0% commission, halal ETFs, and Commodity Murabaha savings products, and operates as an official AAOIFI member with a free Halal Stock Screener for checking a stock’s Shariah compliance before investing.
The company received in-principle approval from ADGM’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) in 2025, and secured its full FSRA licence, as a Category 3A entity, in December 2025, positioning itself as the UAE’s first free Halal trading platform. Tabadulat’s total committed capital stands at $3.3 million.
Spare’s third UAE partnership this year
This is the third Spare partnership on this venture’s radar in recent months. Spare’s Pay-by-Bank infrastructure already powers rental payments through its partnership with Rewa, and business payments through its partnership with Xsquare. Tabadulat extends that same infrastructure into a third category entirely: retail investment accounts. Spare operates across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Kuwait.
Why it matters
For UAE Open Finance adoption
Open Finance in the Gulf has mostly been framed around consumer payments and rental use cases so far. Extending the same account-to-account rails into brokerage funding is a genuine expansion into wealth and trading infrastructure, not just another payments story. Spare cited Mastercard’s New Payments Index, saying 83% of UAE consumers using account-to-account payments have maintained or increased their usage over the past year, though that specific figure comes from Spare’s own release rather than a source this piece independently located and verified.
For Tabadulat’s investors
For Tabadulat’s customers, the practical change is faster, cheaper funding, no card fees, and near-instant deposits and withdrawals instead of processing delays. There’s a real question the announcement doesn’t address: Tabadulat’s core positioning is a free, 0%-commission Halal trading platform, so a lower-cost funding rail matters directly to a business model that isn’t charging commission on trades. Neither company has said how much this actually reduces Tabadulat’s own payment costs, a number that would say more about the deal’s real value than the speed framing alone.
FAQs
What is Pay-by-Bank?
A payment method that moves money directly between a customer’s bank account and a merchant or platform’s account over regulated payment rails, instead of routing the transaction through a card network.
What does it mean for a brokerage to be Shariah-compliant?
It means the platform’s investment products and operations are structured to avoid Riba (interest), Gharar (excessive uncertainty) and Maysir (speculation), and screen out companies operating in prohibited sectors, typically verified against standards set by a body like AAOIFI.
What is an account-to-account (A2A) payment?
A payment transferred directly from one bank account to another, without a card network or other intermediary, typically settling faster and at lower cost than card-based payments.
What is the FSRA, and what does an ADGM Category 3A licence cover?
The Financial Services Regulatory Authority is the regulator for Abu Dhabi Global Market. A Category 3A licence authorises a firm to deal in investments as principal or agent, the licence category covering a brokerage like Tabadulat.
Which other UAE companies has Spare partnered with?
Spare’s Pay-by-Bank infrastructure also powers rental payments through a partnership with Rewa and business payments through a partnership with Xsquare, alongside this new integration with Tabadulat for investment account funding.
Editor’s Take: Morgan Stanley, Wahed Invest and Nomo Bank are the big names behind Tabadulat’s two-year-old cap table of experience. Tabadulat runs on 0% trading commission, so its margin depends entirely on costs like payment processing. Neither company has said how much Pay-by-Bank actually saves Tabadulat versus card rails, and that number is what would tell you whether this partnership is a meaningful lever on Tabadulat’s own economics or a nice-to-have UX upgrade.
1 comment
[…] Pay-by-Bank through Spare is important because it gives customers an easier way to fund their accounts and own halal stocks. There’s potentially a cost benefit as volumes scale because account-to-account payments can also have different processing economics from card funding. […]