CAIRO: Egypt’s omnichannel payment facilitator Paymob has expanded into the UAE with plans to enter new markets in 2023.
The company is a financial service enabler that provides businesses with more than 40 payment methods and other financial technologies.
Islam Shawky, CEO and co-founder of Paymob, told Arab News that the company is planning to enter new markets in the Middle East by the first quarter of 2023.
“The UAE is the first of many planned GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) markets as we expand across the region. Paymob is on a solid growth trajectory, and we plan to increase our presence over the next few years,” Shawky told Arab News.
The company aims to solidify its presence in the UAE by supporting its large community of small and medium enterprises and large corporations. It plans to hire 150 employees in the UAE.
Although Shawky did not disclose Paymob’s next target market, he stated, “regional expansion plans are underway, and we expect to announce a new market launch in Q1 2023.”
Since the company is strongly investing in the region, it could also explore Saudi Arabia.
The Kingdom has seen considerable changes in its financial technology sector, with startups and large corporations eyeing it to get a piece of the market.
Its fintech sector is getting a massive push after the approval of the Financial Sector Development Plan that facilitates open banking and other financial services to the public.
The plan aims to raise 525 fintech companies, contributing $1.1 billion to the gross domestic product by 2025.
Shawky stated that the company is “actively pursuing operating licenses in key GCC markets, and as soon as we have the approved regulatory frameworks in place, we will be opening several more GCC offices.”
Overall, Paymob has over 16.5 million registered users on its mobile wallets, 150,000 merchants using their services, and employs a team of 1,100 members.
“There are currently over 400,000 businesses in the UAE, 61 percent of which are microbusinesses and 38 percent are SMEs,” Shawky said in a statement.
“We see a massive opportunity to serve this market segment and our goal over the next three years is to empower 15 percent of those merchants with the latest payment technologies to fuel their growth and further digitize the economy,” he added.
