Startups To Watch At Money20/20 Middle East 2025: Zeal
According to Zeal founder and CEO Omar Ebeid, customer payments are more than just that—they are also growth opportunities.
Egypt-born Zeal has been working to reframe the card machine—possibly one of the most familiar devices used in commerce today—as a tool for customer engagement and loyalty.
“Zeal is an award-winning value-added service that transforms existing card machines into powerful growth engines for merchants,” says Zeal founder and CEO Omar Ebeid. “Our technology enables businesses to identify, segment, engage, and retain their customers directly through their card machines, while giving them the insights they need to understand acquisition, retention, and customer lifetime value (CLV).”
To better explain Zeal’s offering, Ebeid points out that today, when a customer pays in-store, merchants know what was bought and when, but not who bought it. This blind spot means merchants cannot measure retention or run meaningful loyalty programs. “Zeal removes this barrier by turning every card machine into a customer intelligence tool.” Ebeid says. “Merchants gain real-time visibility into customer behavior and CLV, while also running loyalty programs and engagement campaigns seamlessly on their card machines, with zero added friction or steps.”
According to Ebeid, now is the right moment to unlock the full potential of card machines with Zeal. “With hundreds of millions of card machines worldwide, they represent an underutilized channel for customer engagement,” Ebeid says. “Zeal is building the global data infrastructure for card machine transactions, enabling merchants, payment providers, and independent sales organizations (ISOs) to deliver frictionless loyalty and personalized customer experiences.”
And through this offering, Ebeid believes that Zeal—which has bases in Cairo and London—is tackling a domain that most have overlooked. “Zeal is uniquely positioned because we are not just competing within the traditional fintech space; we are expanding it,” he explains. “By unlocking the untapped potential of card machines, we enable merchants to go beyond transactions and build relationships with their customers.”
Ebeid also points out that the scalability and universality of the benefits Zeal offers is central to its model. The solution works across all card machines globally, making it infinitely scalable. For merchants, it delivers visibility into customer behavior and CLV without the friction of loyalty apps or QR codes. For customers, it provides a seamless, app-free loyalty experience. And for payment providers and ISOs, it creates new revenue streams through value-added services that extend far beyond competing on transaction fees.
Looking ahead, Zeal’s ambition is to become the global infrastructure for card machine intelligence. “We want to ensure that every in-store transaction tells a story that merchants can act on, customers can benefit from, and payment providers can monetize,” Ebeid says. “In doing so, we aim to reshape how the industry thinks about card machines: from payment devices into engines of customer growth.”
Founder To Founder: Zeal Founder And CEO Omar Ebeid On Why Money20/20 Middle East Matters For Fintech Startups
“Money20/20 Middle East is one of the most important platforms for showcasing innovation in fintech across the region. For us, it is the ideal stage to connect with leading payment providers, independent sales organizations, and merchants who are actively looking for solutions that drive both revenue and customer loyalty.
Our goal is twofold: to showcase how Zeal can empower payment providers and merchants to unlock new value from their existing card machines, and to build meaningful partnerships that accelerate our growth across the Middle East, a region where payments innovation is advancing at a remarkable speed.
For fintech founders in the region, the event is significant, because it brings together a unique mix of global networks and local opportunities. It provides direct access to decision-makers, investors, and collaborators, all of whom are shaping the future of financial technology in one of the world’s fastest-growing fintech markets.”
Pictured in the lead image is Zeal's founder and CEO Omar Ebeid.
Zeal is one of the companies featured in Inc. Arabia's selection of startups to look out for at Money20/20 Middle East 2025. For the full list, click here.
This article first appeared in a special edition of Inc. Arabia created for Money20/20 Middle East in September 2025. To read the full issue online, click here.
