Egyptian Fintech Platform Paymob Expands to the UAE

Paymob, an Egypt-based digital payments service provider, has announced its expansion to the UAE market as part of its regional growth plans. This expansion follows Paymob’s recent Series B funding of $50 million earlier this year. Founded in 2015 by Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj and Mostafa El Menessy, Paymob provides online and offline retailers with digital payment solutions.

The recent expansion to the UAE will further support SMEs and microbusinesses to access financial solutions ranging from mobile wallets to QR payments, and Buy-Now-Pay-Later amongst other services.

“The UAE is a dynamic ecosystem that fosters entrepreneurship and innovation, largely enabled by tremendous support from the public sector,” Islam Shawky, CEO and Co-founder of Paymob, tells StartupScene. “There are currently over 400,000 businesses in the UAE, 61% of which are microbusinesses and 38% are SMEs. We see a massive opportunity to serve this market segment and our goal over the next three years is to empower 15% of those merchants with the latest payment technologies to fuel their growth and further digitize the economy.”

Paymob has appointed financial services professional Omar Haddad as general manager for the G.C.C, based in the UAE. He will grow and lead a team of over 150 employees and support Emiratisation initiatives across the country. According to the company, Paymob has 16.5 million registered users on its app, and over 150,000 merchants. In addition, it has 87% mobile wallet market share in total processed value.

The fintech sector in the region has tripled to around $1.68 billion in H1 2022, compared to the previous year, making it the highest funded sector across emerging venture markets, according to data platform Magnitt. The UAE was the leading market for venture capital when it came to funding and deals, the report stated.