The dual authorization 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. By combining these authorizations into a unified infrastructure, Ziina can offer an integrated suite of services—spanning consumer deposits, merchant acceptance, domestic real-time settlement, and cross-border money transfers—within a single proprietary application layer.
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:
Stored Value Facility (SVF): Originally granted by the CBUAE in June 2024, the SVF license authorizes the firm to hold customer balances, operate digital wallets, and safeguard fiat funds.
Retail Payment Services (Category III): Expands the platform’s merchant acquiring, payment aggregation, and domestic fund transfer capabilities. The license provides regulatory authorization for Ziina’s commercial acceptance tools, including online payment gateways, customizable payment links, QR code transactions, and soft-POS Tap to Pay functionality across iOS and Android devices.
Exchange Business (Category IV): Formally authorized under its SVF framework in August 2026, this permission allows Ziina to facilitate international money transfers and multi-currency foreign exchange digitally, enabling users to remit funds cross-border directly through the Ziina app.
“We’re thankful for the continued support of the Central Bank of the UAE,” stated Faisal Toukan, co-founder and CEO of Ziina . “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 .
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