Checkout.com Wins Provisional UAE Approval as Revolut and Remitly Move Ahead With Full Licences

London-based payments company Checkout.com has secured in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) for a stored value facilities licence, the firm announced on Monday. The provisional clearance allows the company to offer issuing services alongside the acquiring business it already operates in the country.

In-principle approval is the first stage of a two-step regulatory process and does not permit immediate operations. Checkout.com has not provided a timeline for when the licence might become fully active. The stored value facilities regime, originally introduced in 2016, enables non-banks to hold customer funds and issue wallets or cards.

Remo Giovanni Abbondandolo, general manager for MENA at Checkout.com, said that once operational, the combined acquiring and issuing offering would help merchants reduce complexity. The company thanked the central bank for its guidance through the process.

Checkout.com’s commercial pitch centres on working capital efficiencies. Merchants using both its acquiring and issuing services would be able to fund cards directly from balances they have already collected through acquiring, eliminating the need to pre-fund card programmes. The firm has not yet released pricing or details on settlement mechanics, and the claim has not been independently tested. The two services are sold separately, so merchants can choose either product.

Checkout.com’s existing UAE operations include a deposits and cross-border transfers partnership with CFD broker Equiti Group, signed in February. Meanwhile, two international rivals have already completed a similar regulatory journey. Revolut received in-principle approval for stored value facilities and retail payment services in September 2025 and converted both into full licences in June, a gap of about nine months. Revolut has since added a separate provisional approval from Dubai’s virtual asset regulator for crypto services. Remitly announced a full stored value facilities licence with Exchange Business Category IV authorization on July 9, describing itself as among the first international remittance firms to hold one.

Checkout.com reported that its total processing volume across the MENA region grew 62% year over year between 2024 and 2025, though it did not disclose the underlying volume, the UAE’s share, or comparisons with other markets. The final conversion of the provisional licence now depends on the CBUAE’s review; the company has not stated a target date.