Egypt's Paymob expands to the UAE

Emirates will be digital payments service provider's second international market after it entered Pakistan in April

Omar Al Haddad, based in the UAE, has been appointed as Paymob’s general manager for the GCC. Photo: Paymob

Egypt's Paymob, a digital payments service provider, is expanding to the UAE, the company said on Wednesday.

The Emirates will be the company's second international market after entering Pakistan in April.

“The UAE is a dynamic ecosystem that fosters entrepreneurship and innovation, largely enabled by tremendous support from the public sector," said Islam Shawky, Paymob's chief executive and co-founder.

There are currently more than 400,000 businesses in the UAE, 61 per cent of which are microbusinesses and 38 per cent small and medium enterprises, according to Mr Shawky.

"We see a massive opportunity to serve this market segment and our goal over the next three years is to empower 15 per cent of those merchants with the latest payment technologies to fuel their growth and further digitise the economy,” he said.

FinTech was the highest funded sector in emerging venture markets in the first half of 2022, more than tripling to almost $1.68 billion compared with the same period a year ago, a report from Magnitt showed in August.

Investments in FinTech start-ups in the Mena region in the first half of 2022 reached $819 million, led by the UAE.

Paymob has raised a total of $68.5 million, including a $50m Series B round in May.

Its main investors include Kora Capital, PayPal Ventures, Clay Point, Helios Digital Ventures, British International Investment, Global Ventures, A15, FMO and Nclude.

The Cairo-based FinTech aims to become the key player in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, Omar El Gammal, Paymob's vice president of global business development, told The National in April.

Founded in 2015 by Mr Shawky, chief operating officer Alain El Hajj and chief technology officer Mostafa Menessy, Paymob allows online and offline merchants to accept electronic payments from their customers using various products and solutions.

The company's products include bank cards, mobile wallets, QR payments, card instalments, consumer finance and buy-now-pay-later offerings.

A year ago, Paymob teamed up with Mastercard to launch tap-on-phone contactless payments in Egypt. The company said it plans to roll out this service in the UAE in 2023.

In September, Paymob signed a deal with Dubai-based BNPL platform Tabby, allowing businesses in Egypt to process Tabby's interest-free flexible payments solution through Paymob's gateway.

Paymob appointed Omar Al Haddad as general manager for the GCC, based in the UAE. He will grow and lead a team of more than 150 employees and support Emiratisation initiatives, the company said.

Mr Al Haddad has held several senior positions in the financial services industry, including most recently as Mastercard's head of government business development in the UAE and Oman.

He is also a founder and partner of several food and wellness outlets, such as 1762, Appetite UAE, The Climbing Goat Roastery and Live Well UAE.

Paymob has more than 150,000 merchants and has plans to reach a million SMEs in the next couple of years. It has 16.5 million registered users on its app.

In Egypt, the company has 87 per cent mobile wallet market share in total processed value.