PayTabs, a Saudi-based payments platform, has acquired a 100% stake in Paymes, a Turkey-based social commerce platform. Through the acquisition, Paymes will serve as PayTabs’ social commerce platform enabling freelancers, consultants, home-based business owners, micro vendors, and other independent workers across the MENA region to receive payments instantly.

This acquisition is aligned with PayTab’s goal of supporting merchants across each stage of their lifecycle with payment solutions, creating a super payment platform in the process.

"Payments are a commodity and our mission at PayTabs is to ensure that payments are easily made available to every customer segment, from the super merchant or bank to a nano merchant,” Founder and CEO of the PayTabs Group, Abdulaziz Al Jouf, tells StartupScene. “By acquiring Paymes, we are consolidating our position as the only payment solutions powerhouse that has a payment orchestration platform to offer payments solutions for any business size, micro or macro, across the globe."

Paymes will create new opportunities for merchants to trade and sell over social media, including WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, and receive money legitimately. The platform’s features also enable users to set up an ecommerce webstore, and other home-based businesses online.

To date, Paymes serves over 850,000 users across Turkey and Azerbaijan, enabling PayTabs to expand its payment footprint in Eurasian markets. PayTabs is also eyeing other markets in 2023 such as Uzbekistan, Jordan, and Georgia.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have been increasing throughout the year, given the current global economic climate. In the MENA region, a number of recent acquisitions took place this year including USA’s Astute Imaging acquisition of Egypt’s Dileny Tech, and more recently Saudi’s Morni investment of $10 million to acquire mobility startups in Egypt.