Dubai-based fintech Ziina has received a Retail Payment Services Category III license from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), allowing it to offer merchant acquiring, payment aggregation and domestic fund transfers, the company said on Thursday.
The license covers Ziina’s merchant products, including payment links, QR payments, Tap to Pay and its online payment gateway. The company said it is now the first fintech founded in the UAE to hold central bank authorizations for retail payments, stored value and exchange business.
Ziina received a Stored Value Facility license in June 2024, which allowed it to launch its digital wallet. In August 2026, the central bank also authorized it to conduct Exchange Business Category IV activities under that license, covering international money transfers through digital channels, including the Ziina app.
The company said it serves more than 500,000 customers a year, processes more than $1.5 billion in annualized payment volume and is used by one in 10 small and medium-sized businesses in the UAE.
“These licenses give us the regulatory framework to build faster and go further,” said Faisal Toukan, Ziina’s co-founder and chief executive. “Our ambition is to take what we build here to enable financial freedom across the Arab world.”
Ziina was founded in 2020 by Faisal Toukan, Sarah Toukan and Talal Toukan. It started as an app for friends to split bills, and its consumer wallet went live in February 2022.
Retail transfers processed through the UAE Funds Transfer System reached AED9.9 trillion across 114.9 million transactions in 2025, according to the central bank’s annual report cited by the company. Transaction value rose 19.9% from a year earlier, and volume rose 17.8%.
