How Pay10’s UAE Fintech Push Could Boost Business & Tourism
What Pay10’s new UAE fintech solution actually is
Pay10 is not a vague startup promise or a pilot-stage payments app. It is a regulated payments platform in the United Arab Emirates that says it operates under the supervision of the Central Bank of the UAE and holds licences across Stored Value Facilities, Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Category II, and Open Finance. On its UAE site, the company presents itself as a secure, interoperable payments infrastructure player aligned with national rails and schemes including Aani, Al Tareq and Jaywan. That matters because in the Gulf’s increasingly regulated fintech market, licensing and integration are not side notes; they are the product.
For readers in Egypt, the significance is easy to understand. The UAE is building the kind of digital payments backbone that many regional merchants, travel operators and service businesses now need in order to sell faster, settle faster and reduce payment friction for both residents and visitors. Pay10 is trying to position itself inside that backbone rather than simply on top of it.
Why Pay10 is gaining attention now
The biggest verified milestone is Pay10’s Open Finance progress. In an April 24, 2025 press release, the company said it had become the first fintech to go live in production on the UAE’s Open Finance framework. The same release says Pay10’s platform combines three core regulatory authorisations: RPSCS, SVF and Open Finance. On the company’s own timeline page, Pay10 says it received approval in 2025 as the country’s first licensed Third-Party Provider under the Central Bank of the UAE Open Finance framework, and that in August 2025 it completed the first live transaction on the Open Finance platform.
That gives the story real weight. This is not just about another checkout button. It is about a company inserting itself into the regulated rails that could enable bank-linked, account-to-account and wallet-led commerce at scale in the UAE.
How the product is designed to help businesses
Pay10’s merchant proposition is built around practical business needs rather than consumer hype. Its UAE and global materials highlight merchant acquiring, payment aggregation, digital wallets, local transfers, instant payouts, QR-driven payments and cross-border remittances. The company also says Pay10 Biz is aimed at companies of all sizes and offers transaction analytics to help businesses optimise operations.
There are three features that stand out for commercial users.
- Instant or faster settlement logic: Pay10 says its merchant-first model offers lower transaction costs and instant settlements, a valuable advantage for SMEs that depend on cash flow.
- Account-to-account acceptance: On its Al Tareq page, Pay10 says merchants can accept a new real-time payment method in the UAE, allowing customers to pay directly from bank accounts.
- Multiple digital payment modes in one stack: The company combines wallet services, QR-based payments and merchant acceptance tools under one platform.
For small and mid-sized firms, especially in retail, hospitality, food service, transport and tour operations, these features can reduce the classic pain points of delayed settlement, fragmented providers and checkout abandonment.
Why this matters for UAE tourism growth
The editor’s angle is the right one: if Pay10 works as intended, its clearest wider economic impact may be on business and tourism. Tourism growth in the UAE increasingly depends on frictionless digital spending across airports, hotels, attractions, transport, restaurants and shopping.
Official and industry data show why the timing is important. Dubai welcomed 19.59 million international overnight visitors in 2025, up 5% from 18.72 million in 2024, while hotel occupancy reached 80.7% in 2025, according to Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism data published by the Dubai Media Office. In the first half of 2025 alone, Dubai recorded 9.88 million international overnight visitors, with hotel occupancy at 80.6%. At the wider UAE level, the Emirates Tourism Council reported a 79.5% hotel occupancy rate for 2025, while the World Travel & Tourism Council said international visitor spend in the UAE was projected to reach a record AED 228.5 billion in 2025 and that travel and tourism would contribute AED 267.5 billion, nearly 13% of GDP.
In a tourism economy of that scale, payment speed is no longer a backend issue. It shapes conversion. A visitor booking a desert safari, paying a hotel deposit, topping up a wallet, reserving a restaurant table or buying attraction tickets is more likely to complete the transaction when the payment method is familiar, instant and secure.
Hotels, restaurants and attractions could benefit
Hospitality operators want fewer failed transactions and faster access to funds. If Pay10’s account-to-account payments and merchant acceptance tools are widely adopted, hotels and tourism businesses could reduce reliance on traditional card flows for some transactions and potentially improve margins through lower-cost payment options.
Restaurants and cafés, especially high-volume venues in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, may also benefit from QR-led and wallet-led payments. For Egypt-based readers, that is relevant because many Egyptian entrepreneurs, franchise operators and hospitality professionals work in or supply the UAE market. A stronger digital acceptance layer can support smoother operations for both local operators and regional partners.
Cross-border convenience can help visitor confidence
Pay10 also emphasises cross-border remittances and support for 100-plus currencies on its website. While a tourist may not use every part of that stack directly, the wider effect is meaningful: platforms that make fund movement easier for workers, merchants and service providers strengthen the broader visitor economy as well. Tour operators, travel agencies, experience platforms and marketplace sellers all depend on money moving quickly and predictably.
That is especially important in the UAE, where tourism is deeply tied to international arrivals, expat-run businesses and digitally enabled service ecosystems.
Open Finance could be the long-term game changer
The most strategic element in Pay10’s story is Open Finance. The Central Bank of the UAE says its Open Finance vision is to stimulate innovation through consent-driven, secure and customer-centric digital business models. The rulebook shows that the framework came into effect in phases beginning in 2024.
Pay10’s Al Tareq integration points to how this may work in practice. The company says users can securely connect bank accounts, add money and pay directly from their bank account through the national Open Finance gateway. For merchants, this means the possibility of real-time account-to-account acceptance. For the tourism sector, it could eventually mean easier checkout for bookings, add-ons, deposits and in-destination purchases.
In plain terms, that can help the UAE become easier to buy from. And in tourism, easier buying often means higher conversion rates.
What Egyptian readers should take from this
This article does not belong in a local New Cairo or Fifth Settlement frame, because Pay10 is a foreign subject rooted in the UAE, not Egypt. But it is still relevant to Egyptian readers watching regional fintech and tourism trends. The UAE is one of the Arab world’s most competitive tourism and services markets, and payment innovation there often signals where MENA commerce is heading next.
Pay10’s progress suggests that the next phase of fintech competition in the UAE will not be about launching an app alone. It will be about regulated infrastructure, direct bank connectivity, merchant acceptance and settlement efficiency. If the company executes well, it could become useful not only for everyday commerce but also for the visitor economy that powers hotels, dining, attractions and experiences across the Emirates.
That is why Pay10’s new fintech solution deserves attention: not because it is merely new, but because it sits at the intersection of regulation, commerce and tourism growth in one of the region’s most important markets.