Table of Contents
Pemo has received in-principle approval for a Stored Value Facilities (SVF) license from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), the company announced. Pemo said it expects to complete the full licensing process in the coming months, and describes itself as among the first spend management platforms in the UAE to reach this stage.
Pemo is a Dubai-based spend management platform for small and medium-sized businesses, offering corporate virtual and physical cards alongside automated expense tools.
Ayham Gorani, Pemo’s co-founder and chief executive, said,
“This in-principle approval reflects the trust our customers place in us every day. We are deeply grateful to the Central Bank of the UAE for its guidance throughout this process, to our team for the work that made it possible, and to our customers for the trust they place in us every day. From day one, Pemo has been built for SMEs here. This milestone means we can keep deepening that support while opening the door to new products that go beyond spend management and make managing business finances even simpler.”
What in-principle approval for a Stored Value Facilities license means
An SVF license, once final, would let Pemo hold and manage customer business funds digitally rather than routing every transaction through a partner bank, introduce its own digital wallets, and give customers faster access to funds. The company said an SVF license would expand its financial services offering beyond its current card-issuing and expense-management product.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Regulator | Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) |
| Regulation | Stored Value Facilities (SVF) Regulation, issued via Circular No. 6/2020 in November 2020 |
| Minimum paid-up capital | AED 15 million, or an equivalent amount in another CBUAE-approved currency |
| Additional capital requirement | Aggregate capital funds equal to at least 5% of total customer float held |
| Other requirement | An unconditional, irrevocable bank guarantee for the full paid-up capital amount, payable to the CBUAE on first demand |
| What it covers | E-wallets, prepaid cards, digital payment applications and other platforms that digitally store customer value |
The SVF Regulation is the same framework that Checkout.com and Remitly have used to secure their own stored value licenses in the UAE this year, though those are payments companies operating at a different scale and business model than a business-focused spend management platform like Pemo.
Pemo’s growth since its last funding round
Pemo has raised two disclosed rounds: a $12 million seed round in May 2022, co-led by Cherry Ventures and Shorooq Partners, and a $7 million pre-Series A round in November 2024, co-led by Augmentum Fintech and Shorooq. At the time of that pre-Series A, Pemo said it had reached AED 1.4 billion in annualised transactions and was used by more than 4,000 companies.
In its SVF announcement, Pemo said it now serves more than 6,000 UAE business customers, an increase of roughly 2,000 since the pre-Series A figures were disclosed less than two years earlier. The company has not disclosed an updated transaction volume figure alongside the SVF news. Pemo has said it plans to use prior funding for product development and expansion into Saudi Arabia; the SVF announcement does not update that expansion timeline.
Pemo is also one of four fintechs, alongside Mamo, Qashio and Vault, named in a Dubai Chambers memorandum of understanding aimed at broadening SME access to digital banking services across payments, spend management, savings and working capital financing, according to the MENA Fintech Association’s own coverage of that initiative.
Why it matters
For UAE SME finance
Pemo’s own announcement cited figures on the gap it says it is addressing: SMEs make up roughly 90% of the UAE’s operating companies and drive more than 60% of non-oil GDP, but receive only around 10% of total bank funding, according to the company. Those figures come from Pemo’s own release rather than an independent audit, and should be read as the company’s framing of the problem it is solving rather than a verified third-party statistic. Separately, broader UAE SME research has found that roughly a third of surveyed SMEs could not obtain short-term financing when they needed it, pointing to a financing gap that predates and extends beyond BNPL-style corporate cards specifically.
For Pemo’s existing customers
An SVF license would change how Pemo’s more than 6,000 UAE business customers actually hold funds inside the platform, moving from a model reliant on a partner bank to one where Pemo itself can hold and manage that value once the license is final. That is an infrastructure change with a direct customer impact: faster fund access is the specific benefit Pemo has pointed to, though the company has not detailed by how much, or which features depend on it.
The bottom line
Pemo has cleared the in-principle stage for a stored value facilities license that would let it hold customer funds and issue digital wallets directly, rather than solely through a partner bank. The company’s own customer growth, from roughly 4,000 businesses in late 2024 to more than 6,000 now, gives some sense of scale, though an updated transaction volume figure to match would sharpen the picture. What happens over the coming months, as Pemo works to convert this into a final license, is the part worth tracking next.
FAQs
What is a Stored Value Facilities (SVF) license in the UAE?
A license issued by the Central Bank of the UAE, under a regulation dating to November 2020, covering e-wallets, prepaid cards and other products that digitally store customer value.
What is the difference between an in-principle approval and a final license from the CBUAE?
An in-principle approval means the CBUAE has cleared the core application but the company still has to complete remaining requirements, such as operational and technical checks, before the license becomes final and it can actually operate under it.
What can a company do with an SVF license that it couldn’t do before?
Hold and manage customer funds digitally, issue digital wallets, and process stored-value transactions directly, rather than routing that activity through a partner bank.
How much capital does a company need for a UAE SVF license?
A minimum of AED 15 million in paid-up capital, plus aggregate capital funds equal to at least 5% of total customer float held, under the CBUAE’s Stored Value Facilities Regulation.
Which other UAE fintechs have SVF licenses or approvals?
Checkout.com and Remitly have both secured stored value facilities approvals from the CBUAE in 2026, though both operate at a different scale and business model than a business-focused spend management platform like Pemo.
Editor’s Take: What is missing from the announcement, and worth asking Pemo directly, is an updated transaction volume figure to sit alongside the new 6,000-customer count. AED 1.4 billion in annualised transactions was the headline number less than two years ago; without a current equivalent, more customers and more scale aren’t quite the same claim. That gap is worth watching as in-principle approval for a Stored Value Facilities license moves toward becoming final.