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Ziina, the UAE payments app, has a Retail Payment Services Category III licence from the Central Bank of the UAE, adding it to the stored value facility licence it has held since June 2024. The company announced the approvals on 22 October.
Key Takeaways
Ziina has a Retail Payment Services Category III licence from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) for merchant acquiring, payment aggregation and domestic fund transfers, and an Exchange Business Category IV authorisation under its existing stored value facility (SVF) licence. The company announced both on 22 October 2026.
Ziina says it is the first UAE-founded fintech to hold all three authorisations.
The Category IV authorisation was granted in August, and Ziina has held its SVF licence since June 2024.
What the licences cover
The Category III licence covers merchant acquiring, payment aggregation and domestic fund transfers. Ziina says it fully authorises its merchant products: payment links, QR payments, Tap to Pay and its online payment gateway.
The second approval is an Exchange Business Category IV authorisation, added under its existing SVF licence. It allows international money transfers through digital channels, including inside the Ziina app. The CBUAE granted it in August 2026, and the release doesn’t give a date for the Category III licence.
Faisal Toukan, Ziina’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “These licenses give us the regulatory framework to build faster and go further.”
Ziina plans to offer receiving and holding money, spending, domestic payments and international transfers in one platform.
Ziina says it is the first UAE-founded fintech to hold authorisations spanning all three activities: stored value, retail payments and exchange. The claim is the company’s own, and The Paypers did not repeat it in its report. We couldn’t verify it against the CBUAE’s licence lists. The qualifier ‘UAE-founded’ leaves out international firms.
Also, read Upcoming UAE Fintech Events in 2026: What’s Still Ahead
Ziina says it serves more than 500,000 customers a year, processes more than $1.5 billion in annualised payment volume and is used by about one in ten UAE SMEs. These are company figures. The release also cites the CBUAE’s 2025 annual report: retail transfers through the UAE Funds Transfer System reached AED 9.9 trillion across 114.9 million transactions in 2025, up 19.9% in value and 17.8% in volume.
What’s next
Ziina hasn’t given launch dates for the international transfer service, fees or the corridors it will serve. The CBUAE hasn’t published a statement on the approvals that we found.
FAQs
What licences does Ziina hold?
A stored value facility licence (June 2024), a Retail Payment Services Category III licence, and an Exchange Business Category IV authorisation under the SVF licence.
What does the Category III licence allow?
According to Ziina, merchant acquiring, payment aggregation and domestic fund transfers.
What does the Exchange Business Category IV authorisation allow?
International money transfers through digital channels, including in the Ziina app, according to Ziina.
Is Ziina the first UAE fintech with these licences?
That is Ziina’s own claim, limited to UAE-founded fintechs holding all three authorisations. It hasn’t been independently verified.
When did Ziina get its licences?
The SVF licence in June 2024 and the Category IV authorisation in August 2026. The Category III date wasn’t given.
Editor’s Take: Ziina now holds three CBUAE authorisations that together cover wallets, merchant payments and international transfers. The Category IV approval dates from August, so the October announcement bundles older and newer approvals. The ‘first’ claim is limited to UAE-founded fintechs and rests on the company’s own statement. The international transfer service has no stated launch date, fees or corridors. Those details would show how it compares with exchange houses and the wallets already sending money abroad.