Yuno and Tap Payments Join Forces to Cut Payments Friction in MENA

Global financial infrastructure platform Yuno has confirmed a strategic alliance with regional payments provider Tap Payments, unveiling the collaboration during the international technology conference in Qatar. The partnership is designed to give multinational merchants faster, compliant access to Gulf Cooperation Council markets by combining Yuno’s global payment orchestration technology with Tap’s locally licensed payments infrastructure across the region.

The agreement comes at a time when digital commerce across the GCC is accelerating, driven by government-backed digitization initiatives, rising e-commerce penetration, and growing consumer preference for local payment methods. Despite that momentum, international merchants expanding into the region have often faced a fragmented payments landscape, with each country maintaining its own regulatory framework, settlement rails, and preferred domestic schemes. For large enterprises, navigating those requirements has traditionally meant lengthy licensing processes, multiple integrations, and high operational overhead.

Juan Pablo Ortega, CEO and founder of Yuno, said the partnership reflects the company’s broader goal of reducing complexity for enterprise merchants operating across multiple regions. “Partnering with Tap Payments aligns perfectly with Yuno’s mission to simplify global payments for enterprise merchants. Tap’s unique regional licenses and local payment method expertise will give our merchants a turnkey solution to expand across the GCC with unprecedented speed and compliance certainty.”

Tap Payments operates as a fully licensed payment services provider across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman. Through these licenses, Tap connects merchants directly to national payment networks and locally dominant methods such as mada in Saudi Arabia, KNET in Kuwait, and domestic instant payment systems across the Gulf. Under the new arrangement, Yuno’s enterprise clients will be able to access those rails without establishing separate legal entities or pursuing individual country approvals.

Ali Abulhasan, co-founder and CEO of Tap Payments, said the collaboration is aimed at addressing the structural and regulatory challenges global businesses often face when expanding into the region. “This partnership with Yuno reflects how we help global businesses enter MENA properly. Expansion here requires local licenses, local payment methods, and regulatory understanding in every market. With Tap’s regional infrastructure and Yuno’s orchestration layer, enterprises can scale across the region with clarity, control, and confidence.”

Rather than focusing solely on adding payment options, the partnership centers on regulatory coverage and operational readiness. Yuno’s platform already connects merchants to more than 1,000 global and local payment methods, fraud tools, and acquirers worldwide through a single API. By integrating Tap’s licensed infrastructure, Yuno is extending that reach to more than 20 GCC-specific payment methods while preserving local compliance requirements around settlement, data handling, and consumer protection.

Tap Payments, which says it supports over 120,000 businesses across the region, has positioned itself as a regional gateway for both local startups and international platforms. Its merchant base includes major consumer-facing brands and digital platforms operating across food delivery, social media, and online services. Yuno, by contrast, serves large global enterprises seeking consistent payment performance across multiple jurisdictions. Executives from both companies argue that combining those capabilities addresses a long-standing gap in the MENA payments ecosystem.

The broader implications extend beyond payments infrastructure alone. Friction at the payments layer has long been a drag on e-commerce adoption, limiting cross-border consumption and discouraging international platforms from fully localizing their offerings. In markets where consumers strongly favor domestic payment schemes, gaps in acceptance often translate directly into lost revenue and abandoned transactions. By lowering those barriers, partnerships like this one could help unlock further growth in digital services, online marketplaces, and subscription-based platforms across the Gulf.

The timing also aligns with a broader push by GCC governments to position their economies as regional hubs for fintech and digital trade. Regulatory sandboxes and national payment modernization projects have expanded over the past decade, creating an environment where infrastructure providers can operate at scale while remaining under supervisory oversight. Tap’s licensing footprint reflects that regulatory evolution, while Yuno’s orchestration model mirrors a global shift toward modular, API-driven financial infrastructure.

The next phase of the partnership will focus on operational rollout, including technical integrations, enterprise onboarding, and joint go-to-market initiatives targeting multinational merchants with expansion plans in the Middle East.

Global enterprises are continuing to reassess how and where they expand, particularly in regions with complex regulatory environments. In that context, the Yuno–Tap partnership highlights how payments infrastructure is increasingly shaping market access itself. While it remains unclear whether similar models will emerge in other regions with fragmented regulatory landscapes, the collaboration signals a shift toward more seamless, enterprise-grade financial connectivity across the GCC.