Spare has partnered with UAE-based business payments platform XSquare to introduce Pay by Bank capabilities across corporate payment workflows, extending the use of the country’s Open Finance infrastructure beyond consumer-facing financial services.
The companies said the integration will allow XSquare clients to initiate account-to-account payments through Spare’s Open Finance infrastructure. Proposed use cases include collecting receivables, paying suppliers and managing payment activity through a unified application programming interface, or API.
The arrangement is being developed within the regulatory environment created by the Central Bank of the UAE’s Open Finance Framework, which provides infrastructure and rules for consent-based financial data sharing and transaction initiation. Neither company disclosed financial terms, projected transaction volumes or the number of businesses expected to use the integration.
Moving Business Payments Beyond Card Rails
Pay by Bank allows a customer or business to authorize a payment directly from a bank account rather than entering card details or manually arranging a bank transfer. In an Open Finance environment, an accredited provider can initiate that transaction after receiving the account holder’s express consent and completing the required authentication process.
Spare and XSquare said the account-to-account model could help businesses lower payment-processing costs and shorten settlement times. Card payments can carry transaction costs of between 2% and 3%, adding pressure to cash flow and operating margins.
Spare will provide the connectivity layer used to initiate payments, while XSquare will embed that capability into its broader B2B financial workflow platform. XSquare’s existing services include e-invoicing, collections, supplier payments, approval routing, reconciliation, and integrations with accounting platforms such as Zoho Books, Xero, Wafeq, and Odoo.
A Single Integration for Multiple Workflows
The companies are positioning the partnership as a way to reduce the number of separate banking portals, payment systems and reconciliation tools used by corporate finance teams. Spare said its unified API will provide a single technical integration through which platforms can initiate transactions across supported use cases.
Dalal AlRayes, Co-founder and CEO of Spare, said: “B2B payments across the region remain heavily fragmented, expensive, and operationally complex. Partnering with Xsquare allows us to bring Open Finance capabilities into real-world business payment workflows, helping companies reduce friction and operate more efficiently across markets”.
Ashwin Shenoy, CPO & Co-Founder of Xsquare, added: “Open Finance is set to fundamentally reshape how businesses transact, and we believe the UAE is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation. Through our partnership with Spare, XSquare is bringing together regulated account-to-account payment rails and a powerful B2B payment orchestration layer. This collaboration strengthens our vision of creating a unified financial operating system for businesses”.
UAE Advances Its Open Finance Framework
The partnership comes as the UAE continues implementing a regulated national Open Finance system. The CBUAE defines Open Finance as a secure mechanism through which financial institutions can open their systems to accredited third-party providers, subject to customer consent and regulatory controls.
Under the central bank’s Open Finance Regulation, participating providers can offer financial data-sharing services, transaction-initiation services or both, depending on their authorization. The framework includes an API Hub, a participant trust framework and common infrastructure intended to standardize how providers connect with regulated financial institutions.
Participation is mandatory for licensed institutions that fall within the framework’s scope, with banks and insurance companies included in the first phase of onboarding. Transactions and data access must remain subject to express user consent, secure communications and appropriate authentication.
Spare said the XSquare agreement follows the recent introduction of its international Open Finance payments service in the UAE. AlRayes said Spare had completed what the company described as the GCC’s first international Open Finance payment through AlTareq and unnamed banking partners.
The Spare-XSquare agreement provides another example of UAE fintech companies applying Open Finance infrastructure to operational business payments.
