UAE’s Mashreq, Thunes Launch Real-Time Mobile-Wallet Transfers

According to the announcement, the service will be powered by Thunes’ Direct Global Network, which will see Mashreq customers send funds directly into mobile wallets across Asia, Africa and Europe. The rollout will initially target the bank’s top 30 payment corridors, with further expansion to more than 45 destinations. The release says that Thunes' network reaches over 130 countries, in more than 80 currencies, connecting to mobile wallets, bank accounts and other payout endpoints worldwide.

Kartik Taneja, the head of Payments & Consumer Lending at Mashreq, said the tie-up would create an avenue for millions of customers to send money "instantly and more affordably than ever before," while supporting the bank's strategy to operate with the agility of a challenger bank. Simon Nelson, Chief Commercial Officer at Thunes, said the deal strengthens the company's position in the Middle East and provides expanded access to financial inclusion for consumers engaging in the global economy through instant, borderless payments.

The timing is notable because real-time mobile-wallet payouts are fast becoming a powerful differentiator for banks operating in markets with high remittance volumes. The UAE remains one of the world's major outbound remittance hubs, and though the press release does not contain any market-size figures, it's a fact that digital payment corridors linked to Asia and Africa continue to grow rapidly, raising pressure on incumbent banks to modernize their cross-border infrastructure. The Mashreq-Thunes tie-up can be seen as both a defensive and forward-leaning move as consumer expectations shift toward faster, cheaper and more transparent money-movement options.

Mobile wallets are increasingly becoming the “last-mile” destination for both fiat payouts and payments that draw on on-chain or hybrid rails, and banks that integrate wallet-first payout rails today may thereby position themselves to interact with future digital-asset channels. While the press release remains strictly fiat-focused, Thunes has publicly announced separate solutions enabling stablecoin-wallet endpoints. That context suggests that institutions like Mashreq are laying the groundwork now for potential future settlement technologies, even if those are not explicitly referenced in this announcement.

Competitive implications in the MENA region include that, by offering real-time mobile wallet payouts, Mashreq strengthens its competitive position against challenger banks, fintech remittance providers and super-apps that already use speedy settlement to attract migrant workers, freelancers and gig-economy populations. The ability to push funds instantly into wallets rather than rely on conventional bank-to-bank remittance windows could shift consumer behaviour, especially in corridors with uneven banking penetration but high mobile-wallet adoption.

There are, however, operational considerations that accompany a rollout of this scale. The companies do not disclose which mobile-wallet providers will be supported in each destination, meaning the service’s real-world reach will ultimately depend on local integrations, regulatory requirements and the operational readiness of wallet providers in receiving markets. Real-time cross-border payouts also require dependable liquidity management, sufficient FX capacity and Know-your-customer checks and controls designed to prevent illicit money flows. Thunes highlights its compliance platform and treasury management systems as part of its infrastructure, reflecting the complexity of running instantaneous multi-currency payout flows at scale.

The convergence between the fintech and Web3-adjacent financial rails, the Mashreq-Thunes partnership is one example of how incumbent banks are re-engineering payout layers to stay relevant in the increasingly multipolar payments landscape. Mobile wallets aren't blockchain products, but they're part of the same global real-time settlement trend that's accelerated the rise of stablecoins and tokenized money. Whether today's integrations will matter in the long run may depend less on which technology comes out on top and more on whether banks can meet users where they already hold value and mobile wallets remain one of the fastest-growing value-storage channels worldwide.

Over the coming months, observers will be watching how Mashreq prices the new service, how quickly the wallet integrations expand beyond the initial 45 destinations, and whether the bank eventually layers additional digital-asset-enabled services on top of this infrastructure. The partnership also raises questions about whether other regional banks will adopt similar capabilities or whether they'll partner with different global payout networks in a bid to stay competitive. The Mashreq–Thunes deal signals that real-time payments, mobile-wallet endpoints and cross-border settlement innovation are fast becoming integral to the region’s financial architecture.

As banks race to modernize their rails, the lines between traditional finance, fintech and emerging digital-asset ecosystems continue to blur. Mashreq’s move represents another step toward a financial system in which users expect instant settlement, flexible endpoints and truly borderless access to funds.