Dubai - Sharikat Mubasher: Ziina, a UAE-based fintech platform, secured the Retail Payment Services Category III license and gained regulatory authorization to conduct Exchange Business Category IV activities from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE).
With the new licenses, Ziina becomes the first UAE fintech company to hold regulatory permissions spanning stored value facilities, retail payment services, and digital currency exchange, the company announced in a press release today.
This milestone marks the completion of Ziina’s phased licensing trajectory with the CBUAE, providing the company with an independent regulatory perimeter to operate a comprehensive financial platform.
The new authorizations will enable Ziina to offer an integrated suite of services, including consumer deposits, merchant acceptance, domestic real-time settlement, and cross-border money transfers, within a single proprietary application layer.
Faisal Toukan, co-founder and CEO of Ziina, commented: “We are thankful for the continued support of the Central Bank of the UAE. These licenses give us the regulatory framework to build faster and go further. When we launched Ziina in the UAE, we believed that we could build the next generation of financial products from this market for the region.”
Rather than relying on third-party sponsorship or fragmented intermediary partnerships, Ziina’s newly expanded licensing structure gives the company direct regulatory oversight across three core operational pillars. The stored value facility (SVF) license allows Ziina to hold customer balances, operate digital wallets, and safeguard fiat funds, while the retail payment services Category III license will expand the platform’s merchant acquiring, payment aggregation, and domestic fund transfer capabilities.
Through the exchange business Category IV license, Ziina will facilitate international money transfers and multi-currency foreign exchange digitally, enabling users to remit funds cross-border directly through the Ziina application.
By combining direct regulatory licensing with full-stack merchant and consumer capabilities, Ziina plans to capture regional market share as digital payments, commercial acquiring, and international remittances continue to consolidate into unified platforms across the Arab world.
