Send. Spend. Get paid. The Dubai fintech rebuilding payments for the MENA region - starting with a phone number instead of a bank form.
Ziina's wordmark. The name plays on the Arabic زينة - a bilingual fintech built in Dubai for the Middle East.
In most of the world, getting paid still means asking for an IBAN, a Swift code, and a little patience. Across the Middle East, cash has stayed stubbornly in charge. Ziina, a fintech founded in Dubai in 2020, set out to delete that friction: open the app, type a phone number, and send money. No account digits, no forms, no waiting.
What began as a way to split a dinner bill and pay a friend has grown into a payments company for small businesses. Ziina now lets a home baker collect money over an Instagram message, lets a shop accept a contactless tap on an iPhone, and lets an online store plug a checkout into Shopify or WooCommerce. The pitch is stitched into its three-word tagline: Send. Spend. Get Paid.
The company is licensed as a Stored Value Facility by the Central Bank of the UAE - and it says it was the first venture-backed startup to earn one. That license is not a footnote. In a region where trust in digital money is still being built, being regulated is part of the product.
By 2024 Ziina counted roughly 50,000 retail and business customers, up from 20,000 at its consumer launch in 2021, and had raised more than $30 million from investors including Altos Ventures, Y Combinator, Fintech Collective and FJ Labs.
Ziina serves two crowds at once: everyday people who want to pay each other without friction, and small businesses that need to get paid without the overhead of a bank merchant account.
The problems it targets are familiar to anyone who has tried to move money in the region. Bank transfers demand account numbers and codes. Cash means trips to an ATM and awkward change. A home business selling on social media has nowhere clean to collect a card payment. And a small shop that wants to take contactless cards has historically needed a terminal, a contract, and a wait.
Ziina's answer is to compress each of those into a phone. Peer-to-peer transfers run on a mobile number. Payment links turn a chat into a checkout. Tap to Pay turns the phone already in a merchant's hand into a card reader. And a payment gateway drops a checkout into an existing online store.
Send and receive money using only a phone number, with real-time notifications and full transaction history.
Shareable links to collect payments over social and messaging apps via Apple Pay, Google Pay, Mastercard and Visa.
An in-app payments keyboard so businesses can request money without leaving WhatsApp or Instagram.
An online checkout with multi-currency support and integrations for Shopify and WooCommerce.
Contactless in-person acceptance that turns an iPhone or Android phone into a card terminal - no extra hardware.
A business card to manage funds, pay suppliers, categorize expenses and set employee-level controls.
Pricing is deliberately plain: roughly 2.6% + 1 AED per payment link and point-of-sale transaction, and 2.9% + 1 AED per gateway transaction, with no monthly fees. In a market used to opaque charges, publishing the number is itself a selling point.
Consumer transfers are free and act as the front door. The revenue comes from businesses paying transparent per-transaction fees - and, ahead, from cards and broader financial services.
The 2024 Series A was led by Altos Ventures, with Fintech Collective, FJ Labs, Avenir Growth Capital, Y Combinator, Jabbar Internet Group, Activant Capital, MEVP and JIMCO taking part. The company framed the round as fuel to move "from a payments platform to an end-to-end financial services provider" - the strategic logic behind ZiiCard.
Ziina competes in a crowded MENA payments field that includes gateway players like PayTabs, Telr and Tap Payments, buy-now-pay-later names like Tabby, and consumer wallets such as Mamo Pay - not to mention the card networks and, most stubbornly, cash itself.
Its edge is the combination: a genuinely simple consumer wallet that doubles as a business tool, wrapped in a Central Bank license and priced in the open. Rather than clone a Western app, the founders localized - building for the cultural and economic habits of the Middle East, in Arabic and English.
The market backdrop helps. The UAE has pushed hard to become a regional fintech hub, and regulators have moved to formalize digital payments. A regulated, mobile-first wallet that lets social sellers and small shops accept modern payments sits squarely in that shift from cash to digital.
The open question is the one every wallet in the region faces: can it convert a cash-first population fast enough, and deep enough, to become the default. Ziina's bet is that habit - split a bill today, run a checkout tomorrow - compounds into something bigger.
The Toukans and Andrew Gold start Ziina and raise an $850K pre-seed led by Class 5 Global.
Ziina opens its P2P app to 20,000 users and raises a $7.5M seed led by Avenir Growth Capital.
Businesses get paid over social and messaging apps via a payments keyboard.
An online checkout arrives with Shopify and WooCommerce integrations.
Altos Ventures leads a round pushing total funding past $30M, aimed at end-to-end financial services.
Ziina launches Tap to Pay on iPhone in the UAE and partners with the Dubai CommerCity free zone.
Ziina was founded by Faisal Toukan, its CEO, alongside Sarah Toukan, Talal Toukan and Andrew Gold. Faisal, a Jordanian-American and Y Combinator alum, has been an advocate for building financial products tuned to the region rather than imported from elsewhere.
A Dubai-based fintech offering a digital wallet and payment tools that let consumers and small businesses send, spend and get paid using a phone number, payment links, QR codes and Tap to Pay.
It was founded in 2020 in Dubai by Faisal Toukan (CEO) with co-founders Sarah Toukan, Andrew Gold and Talal Toukan.
Yes. Ziina holds a Stored Value Facility (SVF) license from the Central Bank of the UAE and says it was the first venture-backed startup to receive one.
More than $30 million, including an $850K pre-seed (2020), a $7.5M seed (2021) and a $22M Series A led by Altos Ventures (2024).
Through transparent merchant fees - roughly 2.6% + 1 AED for payment links and POS, and 2.9% + 1 AED for gateway transactions - while consumer P2P transfers are free.