Spare has partnered with UAE proptech platform Rewa to digitize rental payments in Dubai, introducing a pay-by-bank option designed to reduce the real estate sector’s reliance on post-dated checks and manual bank transfers.
The agreement will see Rewa integrate Spare’s open finance payment infrastructure, allowing tenants to pay rent directly from their bank accounts without checks or manual transfers, according to an announcement shared with Block News International. The companies said the model is intended to simplify rent collection, improve payment visibility for landlords and property managers, and create a clearer digital record of rental transactions.
The partnership comes as Dubai continues to push more real estate processes online, with the Dubai Land Department working toward a more digital and paperless property ecosystem. Rent remains one of the largest recurring payments for residents in the emirate, and the way those payments are collected has long depended on processes that are familiar but often slow, fragmented, and difficult to track in real time.
Digital Rent Payments Take Shape
Spare’s pay-by-bank solution is built around the UAE’s Open Finance Framework, a regulatory structure overseen by the Central Bank of the UAE. Open finance allows approved providers to use secure digital connections to support financial data sharing and payment initiation, giving banks, fintech firms, and consumer platforms a regulated route to build new services.
In practical terms, the integration means Rewa users will be able to move rent directly from their bank accounts without relying on paper checks or separate manual transfers. Landlords and property managers, meanwhile, are expected to gain better visibility over incoming payments and collection status.
Dalal AlRayes, Co-founder and CEO of Spare, said the UAE’s digital government progress makes real estate a natural area for further modernization.
"The UAE has set a global benchmark for digital government services, ranking among the world's top countries for digital infrastructure and e-government delivery, and the real estate sector is a natural extension of that. Through our partnership with Rewa, we're helping transform the cumbersome, manual process of rental payments to a seamless experience that is more transparent and easier to manage."
The Scale of Dubai's Rental Market
Dubai’s rental market gives the partnership a sizable addressable base. According to Dubai Land Department, the emirate recorded 1.38 million registered tenancy contracts in 2025, with a combined value of about $34.42 billion (AED 126.4 billion). DLD said registered tenancy contracts grew 6% in volume and 17% in value compared with 2024.
Those figures show why payment infrastructure is becoming a more important part of the property market. When millions of tenancy agreements are registered across residential and commercial real estate, even small improvements in payment timing, visibility, and reconciliation can have a meaningful operational effect.
The integration also fits with Dubai’s wider push to reduce paperwork across government-linked services. Real estate transactions increasingly sit at the intersection of fintech, identity, compliance, property management, and digital public services. Rent payments are one of the clearest examples of that overlap because they affect tenants, landlords, brokers, banks, and regulators.
Rewa Points to a Market Shift
Rewa, which describes itself as a rent payment and rewards platform, has positioned its service around making rent easier to pay while giving landlords and property managers more certainty over collections. The Spare partnership adds a direct bank-payment layer to that model.
Najib Khanafer, Co-founder and CEO of Rewa, said moving away from post-dated checks is more than a convenience upgrade.
"Moving away from post-dated cheques isn't just a convenience upgrade, it's a structural shift in how the rental market operates, and one that sits squarely within the Central Bank of the UAE's Open Finance vision. Integrating Spare's Pay-by-bank infrastructure means tenants can pay rent digitally and instantly, while landlords gain the payment certainty and real-time visibility that cheques never provided. We're building the payment and loyalty layer that the UAE rental market has been missing."
The appeal for tenants is straightforward: fewer manual steps and a payment flow that feels closer to other digital financial services. The landlord-side benefit is different but equally important. Digital payments can help reduce uncertainty around collection, cut down on reconciliation work, and make it easier to monitor payment status across multiple tenants or properties.
Fintech Meets Proptech in the UAE
The partnership reflects a broader shift in the UAE, where fintech infrastructure is increasingly being embedded into sector-specific platforms. Rather than treating payments as a separate back-office function, companies are building financial tools directly into real estate, retail, mobility, and business software products.
Spare operates across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Kuwait, offering businesses access to financial data and payment services through a single API. Rewa is focused on rental payments and rewards, starting with the UAE and targeting the wider GCC rental market.
As open finance adoption develops, partnerships like this could become more common. Property platforms need regulated payment rails, while open finance providers need real-world use cases that touch large transaction volumes. Rent is one of the most visible categories because it is high-value, recurring, and still heavily shaped by legacy payment practices.
Dubai’s rental market is large, increasingly digitized, and closely tied to the emirate’s wider paperless government ambitions. By bringing pay-by-bank payments into Rewa’s platform, Spare and Rewa are helping move rent collection away from checks and toward regulated digital finance infrastructure across the UAE.
