Taking the next step in its global expansion plans, Paymob, a payments facilitator in the MENAP region, has announced the United Arab Emirates as its regional hub.
This move comes as part of Paymob’s expansion and growth plans. Following recent Series B funding, the firm aims to empower small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It also plans to provide its digital payment solutions to drive growth in the digital economy across the UAE’s seven emirates. The company announced plans to make significant investments in the UAE market over the next three years.
Islam Shawky, CEO and co-founder of Paymob spoke on the company’s decision to make the UAE its regional hub. He said: “The U.A.E. is a dynamic ecosystem that fosters entrepreneurship and innovation, largely enabled by tremendous support from the public sector.
“There are currently over 400,000 businesses in the U.A.E. Sixty-one per cent of these are microbusinesses and 38 per cent are SMEs. 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 digitize the economy.”
As part of the decision, Paymob has appointed Omar Haddad as general manager for the GCC. Haddad’s role will entail growing and leading a team of more than 150 employees. The company aims to support the next generation of Emirati financial technology leaders. It plans to do this by mentoring them and supporting Emiratization initiatives across the nation.
Paymob’s plans for the future
Serving over 16.5 million users registered for mobile wallets, Paymob offers over 40 online and in-store payment methods. Users can access these payment methods via the Paymob app. The company also boasts an 87 per cent market share of mobile wallets processed in Egypt.
In 2021, Paymob forged a partnership with Mastercard. The partnership enabled it to offer Egypt’s first ‘tap-on-phone‘ contactless payments acceptance solution. The solution enables merchants of all sizes to accept payments via their mobile devices.
The solution ensures that merchants do not require a POS device. While the system makes accepting payments more accessible, the ‘tap-on-phone’ solution could also prove more secure than traditional cards with magnetic strips. Because less information is transmitted than when using traditional cards, the payment method is less susceptible to fraudulent attacks. The company plans to roll out this same offering across the UAE throughout 2023.
As part of Paymob’s overall aims, it plans to continue to make growing smaller businesses far simpler. The company aims to make processes in the digital economy simpler.
