The Middle East and North Africa regions stand at the forefront of a financial revolution. Open banking and open finance are transforming how money moves across the Gulf Cooperation Council. Their regulatory frameworks and API-driven architectures are also reshaping the entire scenario of both banks and fintechs alike.
The global open banking market, valued at $31.6 billion in 2024, is projected to grow more than fourfold to $135.2 billion by 2030. This represents the annual growth of nearly 28%. Based on this context, the GCC represents one of the fastest-growing markets, with transaction volumes showing explosive growth as regulators roll out comprehensive frameworks for data sharing and API standardization.
For UAE fintechs looking to capitalize on this opportunity, understanding the regulatory landscape, technical architecture, and business use cases is critical.
This comprehensive guide explores how Tezo Digital’s API-driven approach enables financial institutions to build top-notch open banking platforms that form new revenue streams while ensuring compliance and security.
Open banking enables secure, consented data sharing between financial institutions and authorized third-party providers. This entire process occurs through standardized Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Rather than operating closed systems, banks showcase limited customer financial data and services to licensed providers to create an ecosystem where innovation can flourish.
While open banking focuses primarily on banking data, open finance extends this concept across the entire financial services spectrum. The UAE is pioneering comprehensive financial data sharing, transforming how customers access and manage their entire financial lives. This includes banking, insurance, mortgages, investments, and more.
This approach creates opportunities for:
The Central Bank has officially provided the license to the Open Finance providers under the Nebras framework. This strengthened the Emirates with scale and ambition to position themselves among the global frontrunners, alongside pioneers like the UK and Singapore.
The Central Bank of the UAE introduced the Open Finance Regulation in June 2024, establishing a mandatory framework for all licensed financial institutions. This regulation creates an ecosystem consisting of three core components:
2025 saw the launch of ‘AlTareq’ branding under Nebras Open Finance. This called all licensed financial institutions and fintechs to adopt common branding and user journey features. This unified approach ensures consumers have consistent and recognizable experiences across different providers while maintaining trust.
The potential economic impact is substantial. McKinsey estimates this transformation could deliver a 1 to 5 percent boost to GDP by 2030, equivalent to AED 80-90 billion in additional output. All this while supporting the country’s goal of deriving 20% of its non-oil GDP from the digital economy.
While the UAE has taken a comprehensive approach, other GCC countries are progressing at varying speeds:
Industry Key Use Cases: Monetizing Open Banking APIsA2A payments represent one of the most transformative use cases for open banking. Forecasts predict a 19% CAGR for A2A payments by 2027, driven by the increased adoption of open banking and the demand for direct, seamless transfers.
Business Benefits:
The UAE’s digital wallet market is experiencing explosive growth. As of 2024, 46% of the population uses mobile wallets such as FAB’s Payit Wallet, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay for daily purchases. The mobile wallets market is projected to reach $7.18 billion by 2028.
Digital wallets leverage open banking APIs to:
Open banking transforms lending by enabling real-time and cash-flow based underwriting. In the UK, lenders using open banking data achieved approval rates 60% higher and credit decision accuracy 90% better than traditional methods.
For UAE SMEs, which account for 94% of companies yet access only a fraction of regional lending. This represents a transformative opportunity.
Real-time financial data allows lenders to:
Payment orchestration platforms aggregate multiple payment service providers, gateways, and methods through a unified API layer. For cross-border e-commerce businesses operating in the GCC, this is particularly valuable.
Key capabilities include:
PFM applications use account aggregation of APIs to provide users with consolidated views of their finances across multiple institutions. These apps can:
Banks and fintechs across the UAE, KSA, Bahrain, and Qatar often struggle with various challenges. Fragmented legacy cores, strict data-residency requirements, and the need to integrate rapidly with national payment rails, open finance frameworks, and cross-border settlement systems, are few of them.
But what makes Tezo Digital especially valuable in the GCC is its ability to solve the region’s unique BFSI challenges. We bring deep expertise in building cloud-native digital platforms, modern data architectures, and scalable enterprise applications. This makes it perfect for financial institutions to create strong technical foundations required for open-banking initiatives.
We specialize in designing and developing modular, service-driven architectures that support secure and efficient data exchange. Our engineering capabilities include:
Cloud-Native & Scalable Design: Modernizing legacy infrastructures through secure, cloud-ready, and regulator-aligned architectures.
Our approach includes:
Interoperability & Data Integration: Unifying data across disparate systems, enabling financial institutions to consolidate and standardize information for real-time use.
REST-Based Service Development: Building clean, well-structured APIs and microservices that simplify integration with external systems and internal applications.
Example – Tezo’s modernization of a legacy loan-management platform, transforming it into a cloud-ready web solution.
Our service portfolio incorporates enterprise-grade security and governance principles:
Our work heavily emphasizes data engineering, modernization, and pipeline creation. These are the most essential prerequisites for open-banking systems:
Example – Tezo has also executed large-scale data transformation projects, such as consolidating fragmented financial data into unified, and analytics-ready platforms.
Tezo’s engineering approach supports rapid delivery and long-term scalability through:
These delivery capabilities ensure institutions have the support structure they need when building new digital or API-based products.
The convergence of progressive regulation, advanced digital infrastructure, and strong market demand creates unprecedented opportunities for UAE fintechs. To fortify their profitability and improve cost optimization, GCC banks should harness the power of technology and its multiple scopes such as digitization, generative AI, open banking and APIs.
Tezo Digital’s API-driven approach provides the technical foundation fintechs need to build compliant, secure, and scalable open banking platforms. By leveraging standardized APIs, comprehensive developer tools, and pre-built integrations, financial service providers can accelerate time-to-market and focus on creating differentiated customer experiences.
The open banking revolution in MENA is happening now. Financial institutions that embrace API-driven architectures and open finance principles will lead the next generation of financial innovation in the region.
Don’t miss out on the latest tips, tools, and tactics at the forefront of HR and Employee
We love what we do so much and we're always looking for the next big challenge, the next problem to be solved, the next idea that simply needs the breath of life to become a reality. What's your challenge?
