KSA-Based PayTabs Group Acquires UAE-Based TAPn’GO To Grow Contactless Payments Across The MENA

Saudi Arabia-based fintech PayTabs Group has acquired UAE-based contactless payment platform TAPn’GO with the aim to enable faster, real-time, contactless checkouts for businesses across the MENA region.

Founded by Abdulaziz Al Jouf in Saudi Arabia in 2014, PayTabs is a payments infrastructure company that connects merchant experiences across online, in-store, web, and mobile channels. On the other hand, TAPn’GO, founded by Cyrille Picard in the UAE in 2021, is one of the country’s leading contactless payment capabilities.

With TAPn’GO now becoming a part of the PayTabs super app, it is set to simplify how businesses in sectors like retail, hospitality, healthcare, entertainment, and regulated donation platforms accept payments with its offering of seamless checkouts, convenient experiences, and affordable payment solutions across in-store and digital environments.

The acquisition will see a fully integrated, point-of-sale (POS)-synchronized solution with built-in loyalty and value-added services being delivered to merchants and partners in over 30 industries. With the expectation that the solution will improve operational efficiency and customer engagement, it’s already set to be adopted over 20,000 businesses in the region.

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Al Jouf, founder and CEO of PayTabs, explained the drivers for his company’s acquisition of TAPn’GO. “In the world of high-growth fintech, you don’t acquire to get bigger, but to grow faster and deeper,” he said. “TAPn’GO was an obvious play for our group. They have mastered the art of simplifying the customer interface at the point of sale. When you integrate their tech into our super app, the math is simple: 1+1 equals 10. We are collapsing the space between an online transaction, an in-store purchase, and mobile engagement into one unified layer. We are forcing the market to stop thinking about these as separate silos. We are building an ecosystem where payments, data, and business growth flows. Instead of just chasing the shift to real-time, contactless commerce, we are engineering the platform that makes that shift inevitable.”

Cyrille Picard, founder, TAPn’GO.

Meanwhile, for Picard, given TAPn’GO’s specialization in mobile solutions for fast-track restaurant checkout, the PayTabs acquisition signals its move into a new phase of growth. “PayTabs is one of the most dominant and well-established payment orchestration solutions in the region—a name that businesses and consumers trust for secure, reliable, and seamless digital transactions,” Picard told Inc. Arabia. “Being acquired by PayTabs is a powerful endorsement of TAPn’GO’s vision, and a guarantee of the robustness behind our product,. Merchants and diners alike can have full confidence that every transaction processed through TAPn’GO is backed by a payment infrastructure that is battle-tested at scale. This milestone takes TAPn’GO to an entirely new level. With PayTabs’ reach and expertise behind it, TAPn’GO is now positioned to expand seamlessly across the GCC, Egypt, and more markets in the region. What began as a local solution is becoming a regional standard, powered by one of the most powerful and trusted names in the payment space in the Middle East.”

TAPn’GO’s integration into PayTabs’ super app comes at a time when contactless payments are continuing to grow across the MENA, with the segment expanding at an estimated rate of 25 percent annually, and real-time transactions projected to reach three billion by 2028. “The region is moving fast toward real-time, contactless, and experience-led commerce,” Al Jouf noted. “Customers expect everything to just work, instantly. This is where consolidation and acquisition makes sense. Bringing capabilities together under one platform reduces friction for businesses and accelerates adoption. With real-time payments growing rapidly across the MENA, this acquisition positions us to stay ahead of the curve/shift, while helping businesses of all sizes participate in it.” Picard agreed, noting  noting that TAPn’GO’s growth trajectory is only beginning to unfold. “The adventure is just starting,” Picard said. “Many more features are in the pipeline—innovations designed to benefit both clients and business owners in ways that go well beyond checkout. TAPn’GO’s story is still being written, and the best chapters are ahead.”

As PayTabs and TAPn’GO thus embark on a new phase of growth together, they do so amid ongoing geopolitical uncertainty across the MENA region, which has been raising broader questions for entrepreneurs and business leaders about how to build and scale in volatile times. Al Jouf, however, is clear about what this moment demands. “The ‘wait-and-see’ approach is the fastest way to lose in an emerging market,” he said. “Geopolitical noise is just that, noise. If you look at the long-term fundamentals of this region, the opportunity is massive for those with the muscle and mind to execute. My advice? Build something that matters, not something that’s just ‘profitable.’ Stay so close to the regulators that you become part of the framework, not a target. Resilience isn't about hiding from uncertainty; it’s about having a long-term conviction that outlasts temporary volatility. We invest in infrastructure, because we are betting on the future of the region. Ultimately, tension creates opportunity, and opportunity creates creativity; chaos is sometimes exactly what a business needs to build, test, launch, and adapt. If you are looking for a safe path, don't enter this market. If you are looking to own the next decade of growth, you have to be here, and you have to be fearless."

Pictured in the lead image is PayTabs Group founder Abdulaziz Al Jouf. All images courtesy PayTabs Group.