PayTabs Group has agreed to acquire Amazon Payment Services’ Middle East and North Africa operations in a deal worth more than $100 million, announced 7 September 2026. Once completed, the combined business is expected to process more than SAR 150 billion (about $40 billion) annually, which would make PayTabs the largest payments infrastructure provider in the MENA region.
What the deal covers
Amazon Payment Services, the rebranded successor to PayFort, gives merchants processing infrastructure across nine MENA markets, supporting international card networks alongside regional payment methods such as Saudi Arabia’s Mada, Kuwait’s Knet and Egypt’s Meeza. Its banking relationships run deep into the region’s largest lenders: RAKBANK, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Mashreq, Saudi British Bank, Al Rajhi Bank, Riyad Bank, National Commercial Bank and Egyptian Banks Company are among its partners, alongside Visa and Mastercard.
PayTabs said continuity would be a priority during integration, with minimal disruption expected for existing merchants, alongside faster onboarding and stronger local compliance once the two businesses combine.
Neither company has disclosed the exact purchase price beyond the more than $100 million figure, and no executive from either PayTabs or Amazon has been quoted publicly on the deal across the sources checked.
Also, read Standard Chartered Becomes First G-SIB to Offer UAE Crypto Trading
A second acquisition this year
PayTabs, founded in Saudi Arabia in 2014 by Abdulaziz Fahad Al-Jouf, acquired UAE contactless payments firm TAPn’GO outright in April 2026, folding its checkout technology, covering bill-splitting, tipping and QR-code ordering, into PayTabs’ own Super App. That deal’s terms were undisclosed, but TAPn’GO already served more than 20,000 businesses across retail, hospitality, healthcare and entertainment at the time of the acquisition. Two disclosed acquisitions in five months point to a deliberate regional consolidation strategy rather than an opportunistic one-off purchase.
PayTabs itself has raised a comparatively modest $20 million to date, a Series B closed in 2017 backed by WAED Ventures, Saudi Aramco’s entrepreneurship arm, which holds roughly 8.3% of the company as part of Aramco’s broader 25% stake. A $100 million-plus acquisition funded against that capital base points to significant debt financing, seller financing, or undisclosed additional equity behind the deal, none of which either company has detailed.
A retreat from direct infrastructure
PayFort, founded in 2013 as one of the region’s first fintechs, was not acquired by Amazon as a standalone payments bet. It came bundled inside Amazon’s $580 million acquisition of Souq.com, the Dubai-based e-commerce platform, completed in 2017, and Amazon relaunched the payments arm under its own name that same year.
Selling that business to PayTabs now, nine years later, suggests Amazon is stepping back from operating its own regional payments infrastructure directly, though neither company has said whether Amazon retains any ongoing relationship with the unit after the sale closes, or whether the move signals a broader retreat from direct infrastructure ownership in the region.
Whether the SAR 150 billion combined processing estimate holds up once the deal closes, and whether either company puts a named executive behind it before then, are the more concrete things to watch.
