Checkout.com has received in-principle approval for a UAE Stored Value Facilities licence from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), adding card issuing capability to the acquiring licence it has held in the country since 2023. The approval was .
What the licence would add
Once operational, the SVF licence would let Checkout.com link acquiring, issuing and business account capabilities on a single platform. The company said merchants would be able to fund cards directly from acquired balances, removing the need to pre-fund card programmes separately and giving businesses clearer visibility over how funds move through their accounts.
Remo Giovanni Abbondandolo, general manager for MENA at Checkout.com, said the approval “moves us closer to providing UAE merchants with a truly unified payments platform, bringing acquiring and issuing together with performance at the centre of the equation.”
Checkout.com said its MENA processing volume grew 62% year on year between 2024 and 2025. The region sits inside a business that , up 64% year on year, and returned to full-year EBITDA profitability the same year.
In-principle, not yet final
An in-principle approval is a preliminary regulatory clearance, not an operational licence. Checkout.com hasn’t given a timeline for completing the further steps the requires before the licence becomes final and merchants can use the combined acquiring and issuing capabilities. That framework sets a minimum paid-up capital requirement of AED 15 million, held with a UAE-regulated bank, among the conditions a licensee must satisfy.
The company’s existing UAE licence, a Retail Payment Services (acquiring) licence secured from the CBUAE in 2023, made it the first global payments platform to hold an acquiring licence in the country.
A regulator moving at different speeds
Checkout.com’s in-principle approval lands about three weeks after a related but more advanced milestone. , under Exchange Business Category IV, from the CBUAE on 9 July 2026. Davis Dominic Parakal, Remitly’s UAE chief executive, called the approval “a defining moment for Remitly” in a market the company said processes roughly $50 billion in cross-border transfers annually.
The two licences serve different business models, remittances against acquiring and issuing, but the distance between an in-principle clearance and a final licence is a genuine regulatory gap, not a formality. Remitly has already closed it. Checkout.com hasn’t yet.
