Table of Contents
Pay10, the UAE’s first licensed third-party provider (TPP) under the Central Bank of the UAE’s Open Finance framework, has extended its bank-by-bank rollout into merchant distribution, integrating with payment platform TotalPay so its merchants can accept Pay10 as an additional payment method. The move builds on more than a year of infrastructure work that began with the country’s first live Open Finance transaction and has since brought three of the UAE’s largest banks onto the same rails.
How the rollout actually built up
Pay10 processed the UAE’s first live Open Finance transaction in partnership with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, the first bank certified on Al Tareq, the CBUAE’s Open Finance platform.
Harry Gill, founder and chairman of Pay10, said at the time:
“As the first licensed TPP to go live in production, Pay10 is proud to pioneer the implementation of Open Finance. Together with our partner ADCB, we’re operationalising the UAE’s regulatory vision through secure, scalable infrastructure built for a digital-first economy.”
The rollout then moved to retail banking at scale. Commercial Bank of Dubai activated full Open Finance services for its retail current and savings account customers on 28 December 2025, letting them securely share financial data and initiate payments through the regulated framework.
Dr Bernd van Linder, chief executive of CBD, said
“The launch places the bank at the centre of a fundamental shift in the UAE’s financial architecture.”
Two days later, First Abu Dhabi Bank went live with the same capability for selected retail accounts, enabling secure Pay by Bank payment initiation.
Gill called the FAB milestone “a meaningful step in enabling secure data access” in support of “the UAE’s vision for a resilient digital financial ecosystem.”
From banks to merchants
The TotalPay integration marks a different kind of expansion: rather than another bank going live on the receiving end of Open Finance data, it’s a distribution move that puts Pay10 in front of TotalPay’s existing merchant base as a payment method they can switch on directly. Pay10 and TotalPay say merchants can enable it with minimal integration effort, citing up to 70% lower transaction fees and same-day settlement compared with existing options, figures neither company has broken down against a specific baseline or merchant category.
Also, read Does Tabby Affect Your Credit Score in the UAE?
Why it matters
For the UAE’s Open Finance timeline
The Central Bank published its Open Finance Regulation in April 2024 under its wider Financial Infrastructure Transformation Programme, targeting full integration across the sector by 2026. Pay10’s progression, one bank’s first transaction in mid-2025, two more full retail go-lives by the end of that year, now a merchant-side distribution partner, tracks that timeline closely and gives the regulator a concrete, bank-and-merchant-tested case study rather than a framework that exists only on paper.
For merchants and other Open Finance providers
A licensed TPP reaching merchants through an existing payment platform, rather than requiring each merchant to integrate with the bank-facing infrastructure directly, is a distribution pattern other Open Finance providers in the UAE are likely to follow. Whether TotalPay’s merchants actually adopt Pay10 at scale, rather than it sitting unused as an available option, is the detail that will show whether this expansion model works in practice.
What’s next
Whether the TotalPay integration becomes a template for reaching merchants on other payment platforms, or stays a single distribution deal, is the more concrete thing to track.
FAQ
What is Pay10?
The UAE’s first licensed third-party provider under the Central Bank of the UAE’s Open Finance framework, founded and chaired by Harry Gill.
What is Al Tareq?
The CBUAE’s Open Finance platform, built under its Financial Infrastructure Transformation Programme and governed by an Open Finance Regulation published in April 2024.
Which UAE banks has Pay10 gone live with?
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (the first live Open Finance transaction, mid-2025), Commercial Bank of Dubai (28 December 2025) and First Abu Dhabi Bank (30 December 2025).
What does the TotalPay integration actually add?
It lets TotalPay’s merchants accept Pay10 as a payment method directly, extending Pay10’s infrastructure from bank-facing Open Finance services to merchant-facing payment acceptance.
What are the actual fee savings from using Pay10 through TotalPay?
Pay10 and TotalPay cite up to 70% lower transaction fees and same-day settlement, but neither company has disclosed the baseline this is measured against.
Editor’s Take: Infrastructure companies prove themselves less by racking up more ‘firsts’ and more by whether the thing they built actually gets used somewhere ordinary, like a merchant flipping on a payment option inside a platform they already use. The ‘up to 70%’ fee-savings claim is the part worth treating carefully. It’s the kind of figure that’s technically true for some merchant, in some comparison, without being representative of what most merchants adopting Pay10 through TotalPay will actually see.