Tabby has been granted a Stored Value Facilities (SVF) licence by the Central Bank of the UAE, clearing the regulatory hurdle for the Saudi-headquartered fintech to hold customer funds and roll out a broader suite of financial products in the Emirates, including spending accounts, cards, and money management tools.
The SVF licence, one of the more demanding non-banking authorisations the CBUAE issues, allows regulated entities to issue electronic money and maintain customer balances.
For Tabby, which has served the UAE market since its founding in 2019, it marks the first time the company has held direct regulatory authorisation in the Emirates rather than operating under the lighter framework that governs merchant-funded BNPL.
"Millions of people in the UAE already use Tabby for flexible payments," said Hosam Arab, CEO and co-founder. "This licence lets us serve them beyond credit and build an experience that delivers what money should actually feel like."
The move mirrors the licence stack Tabby has been quietly assembling in its other core market. In Saudi Arabia, the company received its BNPL permit from SAMA in July 2023, graduated to a formal financing licence in October 2025, and acquired Tweeq, a SAMA-licensed digital wallet, in September 2024. Tweeq's consumer-facing services were suspended in December 2025 pending integration approvals, as the company continues to assemble the regulatory infrastructure required to evolve from credit provider into full-stack financial services app.
That ambition is consistent with the "compound startup" framing Arab and his team have articulated to investors for some time. BNPL is the wedge, shopping discovery through Tabby Shop and advertising are the horizontal expansion, and spending accounts, remittances, and banking-adjacent products are the long-term destination. A CBUAE stored value licence in the Emirates, like Tweeq in KSA, is plumbing for that third act.
The news lands at a busy moment for regional BNPL, and on the same day that rival Tamara published its first full-year audited accounts, reporting $51.5 million of net profit on $360 million of revenue for its Saudi subsidiary, both narrowly behind Tabby's Saudi entity numbers on a like-for-like basis.
Both companies are widely expected to pursue Tadawul listings, although neither has formally confirmed timing or advisors. Tabby's most recent private valuation was $4.5 billion, set by a secondary share sale in October 2025 backed by HSG and Boyu Capital. Tamara's most recent was $1 billion, set by its Series C in December 2023.
