Top 10 fintechs to watch in 2024

Fils

Making its UAE debut in November, Fils offers an infrastructure layer for payment companies looking to measure and mitigate their environmental impact through the purchase of carbon credits. With offices in Dubai and London, Fils has also worked with UAE payments company Magnati on emissions calculators and offset methods.

Loyyal

Loyyal uses blockchain technology to optimise loyalty programmes, helping customers to increase scale and improve member experiences at a lower cost. Headquartered in San Francisco, with an office in Dubai, Loyyal partnered with B2B prepaid products marketplace Prepay Nation to expand its services and grant access to more than 10,000 products for clients.

Nymcard

Nymcard offers cloud-based payment issuing and processing services. The UAE firm bought Spotii last year, a buy–now-pay-later fintech company operating in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain.

Nymcard also collaborated with real-time payments processing company ACI Worldwide to enhance fraud management services in the region.

One Global

Headquartered in Kuwait and operating in more than 20 countries, One Global offers a diverse platform of financial services including payment acceptance, procurement and a B2C e-commerce app.

Its flagship application OG Money operates transactions across 12 countries in the Middle East and Africa. Last year it partnered with Mastercard on “click to pay” for digital gift cards, gaming vouchers and bill payments. It plans to expand these services in more countries.

Optasia

Formerly Channel VAS, this UAE company has operated since 2012, offering financial services such as airtime credit, microlending and data monetisation to mobile operators using AI technology.

With a presence in more than 30 countries, Optasia has launched microloans via African company MTN Mobile Money and expanded into Congo through a VodaCash partnership.

It is considering strategic options, including a Middle East IPO or sale, according to Bloomberg.

PayTabs

PayTabs is a payment solutions provider established in 2014 with offices in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt. In 2023 it introduced PayTabs Issuance, a prepaid card for digital transactions.

To boost its digital payment offerings PayTabs has partnered with Tabby for interest-free split payments, Egypt’s FlapKap for digital payments processing and mnGm to provide “gold purchase solutions” via cards.

Sarwa

After achieving a $1 billion trading volume and witnessing a 260 percent surge in monthly deposits, financial platform Sarwa unveiled its latest product last year, Sarwa Save. This is a high-yield cash account with zero local account transfer costs and no minimums or management fees.

Established in the UAE in 2017, Sarwa had more than 180,000 registered users by the first quarter of 2023.

Tabby

Buy-now-pay-later platform Tabby manages a yearly transaction volume of more than $6 billion and works with 30,000 brands, serving 10 million users. Its new app Tabby Shop covers a diverse catalogue of 500,000 products to shoppers.

Founded in Dubai in 2019, Tabby moved its headquarters to Riyadh in September, with the intention to be listed on the Tadawul stock market. In January last year it raised $58 million in a series C round and added $350 million in May. This was followed by $200 million in equity financing in November and up to $700 million in receivables securitisation in December.

Tarabut

The UAE-based open banking platform Tarabut provides a data and payments infrastructure that enables banks, fintechs and merchants to build advanced financial products and services. The platform has offices in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UK.

Last year’s partnerships include teaming up with the Saudi microlending firm Tamam and Bahrain’s Rain crypto assets trading platform. Tarabut successfully raised $32 million in a Series A funding round in May.

Valu

Based in Cairo, Valu provides e-payment solutions across more than 6,000 points of sale and 1,500 websites and apps, covering sectors ranging from healthcare and education, to furniture and electronics.

A subsidiary of Egypt’s EFG Hermes, Valu reported 3.5 times growth in 2022. Its latest plan includes expanding into Jordan in early 2024 and into new markets such as North Africa.