UAE’s financial technology sector is moving from start-up momentum to system-wide infrastructure, with regulators, banks, payment companies and global investors building a deeper digital finance market across Dubai and Abu Dhabi.The country’s FinTech market is projected to expand from about $3.16 billion in 2024 to $5.71 billion by 2029, supported by digital payments, open finance, artificial intelligence, blockchain applications and the rising use of embedded financial services. The growth reflects more than venture appetite. It is being driven by a coordinated policy framework that connects regulation, capital, infrastructure and market demand.
Dubai International Financial Centre remains the most visible platform for this expansion. It ended 2025 with 8,844 active companies, a 28 per cent annual increase, while its AI, FinTech and innovation community reached 1,677 firms after growing 35 per cent. The centre added 775 companies in the first quarter of 2026, reinforcing Dubai’s position as a financial gateway for banks, asset managers, payment firms, wealth platforms, insurers and technology-led start-ups.
Abu Dhabi Global Market is strengthening the other pillar of the ecosystem, particularly in digital assets, market infrastructure and cross-border capital flows. Its regulator has refined frameworks covering virtual assets, fiat-referenced tokens and staking-related activity, giving digital finance companies a clearer path to operate under supervision. More than 20 regulated firms licensed by its financial services regulator conduct activities involving virtual assets or fiat-referenced tokens, a sign of growing institutional interest in regulated tokenisation and digital asset services.
Payment infrastructure is becoming a central part of the UAE’s FinTech proposition. Aani, the national instant payments platform operated by Al Etihad Payments, has crossed 12.5 million users and enables transfers within seconds using mobile numbers, email addresses and QR codes. Its adoption gives banks and FinTech providers a common real-time payments rail, reducing friction in peer-to-peer transfers, merchant payments and future embedded finance products.
The Central Bank of the UAE has also moved open finance into implementation through Al Tareq, designed to allow secure access to financial data and services through licensed third-party providers. The model is expected to support account aggregation, personalised lending, insurance comparison, wealth tools and faster digital onboarding. Unlike voluntary open banking systems in some markets, the UAE approach is being shaped as a structured regulatory framework across licensed financial institutions, giving it a stronger foundation for scale.
A further step came with the Tourist Identity initiative, launched by the Central Bank, the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security, and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. The service allows visitors to open digital bank accounts through a secure online process and receive a digital debit card. For a country where tourism, aviation, retail and hospitality are major economic engines, the move links financial inclusion to visitor spending and cashless commerce.
Banks are responding by expanding their digital payment and merchant-service offerings. Emirates NBD’s role in domestic Visa settlement is intended to speed up local card transactions in dirhams, while other lenders are developing QR payments, tap-to-phone acceptance, e-commerce gateways and pay-by-link tools. These services are particularly important for small and medium-sized businesses, which need lower-cost payment acceptance and faster settlement to compete in a more digital consumer economy.
The UAE’s advantage lies in the way its ecosystem combines financial free zones, national regulators, sovereign technology investment, advanced telecom networks and a young, mobile-first consumer base. High smartphone penetration, widespread digital identity use and the popularity of app-based banking have helped FinTech companies test products quickly. At the same time, public-private partnerships give start-ups access to banks, licensing channels and infrastructure that are difficult to replicate in fragmented markets.
Artificial intelligence is now becoming a defining layer of the sector. Banks and FinTech firms are using AI for fraud detection, credit scoring, personalised financial advice, compliance monitoring and customer service. The launch of sovereign financial cloud infrastructure for the financial sector points to a broader effort to ensure data security, regulatory oversight and domestic control over critical digital systems. This is likely to matter more as financial institutions adopt generative AI and real-time analytics across customer-facing and risk-management functions.
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