Shoppers across the UAE are increasingly reaching for options beyond their bank cards, according to retail industry executives, as telco wallets, buy now pay later schemes and early crypto and stablecoin use reshape how people pay.
Paul Carey, executive vice-president for cards, payments and fintech at Al-Futtaim, said the payments landscape has "shifted massively" over the past five years. He pointed to the wide availability of buy now, pay later options and the rise of open finance, which allows direct bank-to-bank payments without routing through a card network.
Online spending now rivals in-store
Carey noted that between 30 and 50 per cent of spending across Al-Futtaim's businesses is now online, with the exact share varying by business line. That shift has pushed the retail and property conglomerate to rethink how it processes payments across its brands.
To manage that complexity, Al-Futtaim has entered a strategic partnership with Juspay, a global payments technology company, naming it as its payment orchestration partner across all its brands and markets. Nakul Kothari, head of Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at Juspay, said the growth of cross-border commerce in the region was adding to the complexity for merchants.
The UAE has also rolled out Jaywan, its own local debit card, adding another option to a payments mix that once centred almost entirely on international card networks.
