Adyen has obtained a Retail Payment Services Category II license from the Central Bank of the UAE, giving the Dutch payments company greater control over its local operations in one of the Middle East’s most active digital commerce markets.
The company said the license will allow it to manage local settlements in the UAE without relying on third-party providers, strengthening oversight across compliance, settlement flows, and merchant payment operations.
Adyen’s Growing UAE Role
Adyen has been active in the UAE since 2020 and says it already supports payments for companies including Careem, Ellington Properties, Gargash Group, Noon, and Ziina. The new license marks a shift from operating through established local arrangements toward a more direct regulatory and operational position in the country.
The approval comes as the UAE continues to build out its digital payments infrastructure under the supervision of the Central Bank of the UAE. The central bank lists Retail Payment Services among the regulated activities that require authorization, with services covering areas such as merchant acquiring, payment aggregation, domestic fund transfers, cross-border transfers, payment initiation, and payment account information services.
Adyen’s license is Category II, a classification used under the UAE’s retail payment services framework. The Central Bank’s rulebook states that applicants use a Category II license when they intend to provide one or more regulated retail payment services.
Strengthening Merchant Services
Local settlement control is the central point in Adyen’s announcement. Payments companies often depend on banking partners, processors, or other intermediaries to move funds through domestic markets. By gaining more direct control in the UAE, Adyen says it can reduce third-party reliance and improve the resilience of its merchant services.
The company framed the approval as part of a longer-term strategy to own more of its payments infrastructure. Mariëtte Swart, Adyen’s chief risk and compliance officer, said the company’s approach to innovation depends on having an owned foundation that reduces middlemen and third-party risk.
The practical impact is likely to be felt most by larger enterprises and platforms that need consistent settlement, compliance visibility, and cross-channel payment performance. Adyen’s model is built around a single platform that combines online payments, in-store payments, risk management, and financial products for enterprise customers.
Building Momentum in the UAE
The UAE has become an important market for global payments companies because of its mix of retail, travel, e-commerce, real estate, food delivery, and platform-based businesses. Adyen’s listed UAE clients show that its local footprint is not limited to one sector; it includes digital marketplaces, property, automotive, and consumer-facing platforms.
Daumantas Grigaravicius, Adyen’s head of Middle East, said the UAE is a dynamic market for digital commerce and that the license will allow the company to offer more control, reliability, and innovation through local operations.
The approval also supports Adyen’s broader investment in unified commerce, fraud prevention, emerging payment methods, and future technologies such as agentic AI, according to the company.
A Global Payments Firm with Local Rails
Adyen is one of Europe’s largest listed financial technology companies and trades in Amsterdam under the ticker ADYEN. Its customers include major global brands such as H&M, Uber, eBay, and Meta.
The company reported full-year 2025 net revenue of about $2.70 billion (€2.36 billion). Adyen also reported processed volume of about $1.59 trillion (€1.39 trillion) for 2025, while point-of-sale volume reached about $354.7 billion (€311 billion).
Adyen’s growth depends not only on adding merchants but also on improving the infrastructure behind payment acceptance, settlement, fraud controls, and local compliance.
A Stronger Regulatory Footing
The Central Bank of the UAE says its licensing function acts as a gatekeeper for the financial sector, setting minimum standards for market entry. The central bank is also responsible for licensing,
A licensed structure can also give merchants more confidence when choosing payment providers, particularly in a market where regulators have been formalizing the rules around stored value, payment services, card schemes, open finance, and other digital financial activities.
Adyen positioned the approval mainly as an operational and regulatory milestone rather than a short-term commercial forecast.
The license gives Adyen a stronger foundation to expand with UAE-based merchants and international businesses operating in the country. It also places the company more directly inside the UAE’s regulated payments ecosystem at a time when global payment firms are competing to support merchants that operate across online, mobile, and physical retail channels.
Adyen now has more room to localize its UAE operations, reduce dependency on intermediaries, and support enterprise clients that want a single payments platform with stronger domestic settlement capabilities.
