Open Finance in the UAE: Policies and Players Powering the Shift
- Kshitija Kaur and Sanjeev Kumar
- 8 mins read
- Open Finance, Partnerships
Table of Contents
A Market-Led Open Finance Movement Finds Regulatory Grounding
The rollout of Open Banking across the Middle East has been a study in contrasting approaches. For years, the UAE has stood as the Middle East’s financial epicentre, housing global banks, fintech unicorns, and forward-thinking regulators. Yet, when it came to Open Banking, the country took an unrushed approach, watching as Bahrain pioneered frameworks in 2018 and Saudi Arabia executed a phased rollout under Vision 2030.Â
The UAE, however, had something different brewing—an industry-first evolution that saw banks, fintechs, and open banking infrastructure providers experiment with APIs long before official regulations were in place.
This bottom-up adoption allowed Open Finance use cases to gain real-world traction early on. By 2022, Emirates NBD, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB), and Mashreq had launched API portals. Meanwhile, infrastructure players like Tarabut and Lean Technologies were onboarding financial institutions into API-based ecosystems.
Sensing this organic momentum, the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) introduced the Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FIT) Programme in 2023, a multi-phase initiative designed to formalize Open Finance adoption. In 2024, the Open Finance Regulation was unveiled, cementing regulatory clarity and ensuring a standardized financial data-sharing framework across the ecosystem.
Having previously explored how Open Banking is shaping MENA’s financial future, we’re now taking a deep dive into the UAE’s Open Finance timeline, unpacking the milestones, regulations, and industry shifts that define its evolution. Let’s get to it!
CBUAE’s Expanding Regulatory Playbook
Before we get into UAE’s full Open Finance saga, let’s first examine some of the key regulatory additions made by the CBUAE, including the Open Finance Regulation, offering a clearer picture of the landscape we’re about to explore.
The CBUAE has taken a phased, strategic approach to fintech regulation, ensuring that market innovation unfolds within a structured framework. Rather than introducing sweeping reforms all at once, CBUAE has built upon an already strong payments regulatory base, gradually incorporating new fintech verticals to align innovation with risk management.
Until 2024, the UAE’s regulatory landscape was largely payments-focused, with five key regulations ensuring a robust digital payments infrastructure:
- Large Value Payment Systems: Governs high-value transactions, ensuring secure, real-time settlement for banks and financial institutions.
- Retail Payment Systems: Regulates consumer payment flows, covering card networks, e-wallets, and alternative digital payment rails.
- Stored Value Facilities (SVF): Provides oversight for prepaid instruments and digital wallets, ensuring adequate risk controls for customer funds held outside traditional bank accounts.
- Retail Payment Services & Card Schemes: Standardizes merchant payments, ensuring competition and interoperability between payment service providers.
- Loan-Based Crowdfunding: Facilitates alternative financing for SMEs while introducing consumer protection measures to mitigate risks for investors.
In 2024, CBUAE introduced five new regulations, expanding beyond payments into broader fintech innovation:
- Open Finance Regulation: This addition sets the stage for secure financial data sharing, enabling AIS, PIS, and embedded finance models.
- Payment Token Services (Stablecoins): Introduces regulatory clarity for stablecoins, ensuring their integration into the UAE’s financial system while mitigating risks associated with unregulated digital assets​.
- Restricted Finance License (BNPL & Short-Term Credit): A dedicated framework for Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and other short-term credit models, ensuring consumer protection and responsible lending.
- Know Your Customer Digital Platform (eKYC): A centralized digital identity framework that allows financial institutions to streamline onboarding and fraud prevention through shared KYC data​.
- Sandbox Conditions Regulation: Standardizes the UAE’s regulatory sandbox, setting clear testing parameters for fintechs, enabling innovation while ensuring compliance safeguards.
CBUAE’s gradual expansion of regulation demonstrates a deliberate effort to balance financial stability with innovation. By layering payments, credit, digital identity, and financial data-sharing, the UAE is crafting a regulatory environment that is both secure and adaptable to new fintech models.
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The UAE’s Open Finance Ecosystem – A Centralized Approach
The UAE’s Open Finance ecosystem is a broader, more interconnected framework that moves beyond payments into financial services as a whole. The CBUAE has positioned itself as the central orchestrator, ensuring a level playing field and regulated data-sharing environment.
At the core of this vision is the CBUAE Open Finance Platform, a state-backed API hub that standardizes how financial institutions, fintechs, and third-party providers (TPPs) access and exchange data. It embeds:
- A Trust Framework: a centralized control layer that dictates identity verification, participant authentication, and data security standards. This includes digital certificates for TPPs, a compliance assurance mechanism, and a participant registry that ensures only authorized entities can operate in the ecosystem.
- A Common Infrastructural Services layer: provides essential back-end functionality to support ecosystem stability. It includes Consent & Authorization Management for handling user permissions, Support Services for onboarding and technical queries, Analysis & Reporting to track ecosystem performance, and Dispute Resolution to manage and resolve transactional conflicts efficiently.
What sets the UAE apart is the introduction of Service Initiation, an evolution beyond traditional AIS and PIS. While AIS enables data-sharing and PIS allows third-party payments, Service Initiation enables non-banks to initiate financial services directly within their platforms. This opens the door to embedded finance, where services like digital lending, wealth advisory, or pension initiation can be triggered from a fintech app, without users needing to be redirected to the bank.
The CBUAE’s centrally governed approach reduces fragmentation while ensuring innovation happens within a structured environment. By establishing a centralized yet flexible model, the UAE is ensuring that banks, fintechs, and infrastructure providers work within a harmonized framework rather than competing in silos.Â
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The Timeline of Open Finance in the UAE – Key Regulatory & Market Milestones
The UAE’s financial regulatory landscape is uniquely layered, with seven emirates, each with its own judicial system, and two financial free zones—Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and Dubai Financial International Centre (DIFC)—operating under English common law. While the CBUAE governs banking nationwide, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) of DIFC and The Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of ADGM oversee financial services within their respective zones.
This diverse structure enabled early Open Finance experimentation, with DFSA and FSRA facilitating Account Information Services (AIS) and Payment Initiation Services (PIS) through licensing initiatives since 2020​. The industry responded swiftly, with Tarabut (2022, DFSA license) and Lean Technologies (2022, FSRA license) becoming some of the first licensed Open Banking providers.
Regulatory Evolution: A Shift to Unified Oversight
CBUAE initially observed how fintech players and financial free zones facilitated Open Finance activities. However, recognizing the need for national-level standardization, it launched the FIT Programme in 2023, setting the foundation for a centralized Open Finance ecosystem.Â
The key regulatory trend here is the transition to a structured nationwide approach. This shift became clear with:
- 2024: The issuance of the Open Finance Regulation, which mandated banks and financial institutions to provide standardized, secure access to financial data.
- 2024: The establishment of Nebras Open Finance LLC, a CBUAE-backed entity designed to facilitate Open Finance adoption, acting as an infrastructure provider for data sharing and API-driven financial services.
- 2025: The launch of ‘AlTareq’ branding under Nebras Open Finance, requiring all licensed financial institutions and fintechs to adopt common branding and user journey features—a sign of the UAE’s commitment to user-centric Open Finance adoption.
Market Dynamics: Banks, Fintechs & Non-Bank Players Driving Use Cases
On the industry side, UAE banks were among the first in the region to embrace API banking between 2021-2022. However, 2023-2024 saw a shift from bank-led Open Banking to embedded Open Finance, where fintechs, non-financial players, and even infrastructure providers began leveraging financial data and payment capabilities:
- Fintechs are pushing Open Finance use cases in wealth and personal finance management. Lean Technologies and StashAway (2023) integrated Open Banking to automate recurring deposits for investors to reduce friction in wealth management​, while Daleel (2025) entered UAE’s personal finance market to give consumers a consolidated financial view and smarter savings recommendations.
- Infrastructure players are laying the foundation for open finance adoption. Al Etihad Payments (AEP), a subsidiary of the CBUAE, partnered with Core42 in 2024 to implement Open Finance infrastructure in the UAE. AEP has also engaged with Ozone API and Raidiam as technology providers within the consortium led by Core 42 for its Open Finance Implementation. Another infrastructure player, Fintech Galaxy, launched FINX Comply in 2024, offering compliance-as-a-service for open finance, helping banks and insurers integrate securely​.
- Open banking players are powering account-to-account (A2A) payments. Dapi’s 2023 partnership with Mastercard enabled A2A payments, reducing reliance on traditional card networks. Thimsa launched an Open Banking-powered payment management platform in 2024, streamlining instant A2A transfers for businesses​.
- Non-financial players are leveraging open finance for B2B use cases. For instance, Malabar Gold & Diamonds and Emirates NBD (2023) integrated API-based supplier payments and real-time reconciliation to showcase how Open Finance is expanding into corporate treasury and B2B payments.
UAE's Incumbent Banks and Their Open Finance Strategies
As Open Finance gains momentum in the UAE, incumbent banks are taking two distinct approaches. Through direct API ecosystems and strategic fintech partnerships, banks are embedding themselves into business operations, digital commerce, and financial infrastructure, ensuring they remain indispensable in a fast-digitizing economy.
The API-First Approach: Owning the Infrastructure
Leading banks like Mashreq, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, and Emirates NBD have launched API developer portals to open their infrastructure to fintechs, corporates, and TPPs. These portals offer essential functionalities such as account services, payment initiation, and information services, enabling a modular, plug-and-play banking infrastructure. The advantage? Banks retain control over customer engagement while opening avenues for embedded finance across sectors like e-commerce, SME banking, and treasury management. Mashreq’s NEOBiz Connect API, for example, simplifies SME banking by allowing businesses to onboard digitally and access instant financial services. Meanwhile, ADIB’s Open Banking API platform is designed to let TPPs integrate payments, account aggregation, and reconciliation, catering to fintechs that need direct bank connectivity for automated financial operations.
The Partnership Model: Expanding Use Cases Beyond Banking
Rather than building everything in-house, these UAE banks are also are teaming up with open banking infrastructure providers, SMEs, and retailers to bring Open Finance use cases to life. This allows banks to quickly scale new services without building proprietary infrastructure, while fintechs gain regulated access to financial data and payment rails. This lowers development costs, speeds up market entry, and enables banks to tap into new customer segments. Virtuzone’s integration with Mashreq’s NEOBiz Connect API enables swift SME bank account setup. Malabar Gold & Diamonds adopted Emirates NBD’s API banking services to automate supplier payments and enable instant reconciliation, solving inefficiencies in large-scale B2B transactions. Meanwhile, ADIB’s partnership with Lean Technologies focuses on data aggregation and automated payouts, showcasing how open banking facilitates back-office efficiencies.Â
Open Data as the Next Frontier in UAE’s Open Finance Journey
With the 2024 Open Finance Regulation in place, the CBUAE has laid the groundwork for a future where financial data moves seamlessly across institutions, unlocking greater access, transparency, and efficiency. The next frontier? Open Data. By expanding data-sharing beyond financial services into sectors like telecom, utilities, and healthcare, the UAE is aligning with its broader 2026 vision of a fully digitized economy​. The integration of Open Finance into the broader FIT Programme is already 85% complete, with full implementation expected by 2026.Â
With a clear regulatory roadmap in place and growing industry participation, the UAE is well on its way to setting a precedent for the wider MENA region.
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Authors
Kshitija is a senior branding associate at WhiteSight, crafting branding strategies and fintech content. When she's not conjuring up new ideas for the company, you can find her dabbling in new hobbies and documenting her experiences through writing and short films.
Sanjeev is a fintech aficionado who loves to explore the depths of the industry as much as he loves to explore the depths of the ocean in his scuba gear. He is the founder and CEO at WhiteSight, bringing a wealth of research and advisory experience to the fintech world.
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