Ziina becomes the first UAE fintech to hold CBUAE licenses across retail payments, stored value, and exchange

Ziina has secured its Retail Payment Services Category III license and regulatory authorization to conduct Exchange Business Category IV activities from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE). For high-risk PSPs, the important part is not the branding exercise; it is that one UAE fintech now has permissions covering stored value, merchant acquiring, and cross-border transfers under a single regulatory perimeter.

1. Ziina now holds three separate CBUAE permissions: Stored Value Facility (SVF), Retail Payment Services Category III, and Exchange Business Category IV. The company says this makes it the first homegrown UAE financial technology company with regulatory permissions spanning stored value facilities, retail payment services, and digital currency exchange.
2. The SVF license was originally granted by the CBUAE in June 2024. It allows Ziina to hold customer balances, operate digital wallets, and safeguard fiat funds.
3. The Retail Payment Services Category III license expands Ziina’s merchant acquiring, payment aggregation, and domestic fund transfer capabilities. The authorization covers online payment gateways, customizable payment links, QR code transactions, and soft-POS Tap to Pay functionality on iOS and Android devices.
4. Ziina says the Exchange Business Category IV permission was formally authorized under its SVF framework in August 2026. That approval allows the company to facilitate international money transfers and multi-currency foreign exchange digitally, so users can remit funds cross-border directly through the Ziina app.
5. Faisal Toukan, co-founder and CEO of Ziina, said the licenses give the company “the regulatory framework to build faster and go further.” Ziina was founded in 2020 by Faisal Toukan, Sarah Toukan, and Talal Toukan.

Ziina describes the new setup as an independent regulatory perimeter and says it no longer needs to rely on third-party sponsorship or fragmented intermediary partnerships. In practical terms, that matters for any PSP or bank deciding whether a fintech can run consumer balances, merchant acceptance, domestic settlement, and cross-border flows inside one product stack.