• Usama ElSayed, Managing Director Middle East and Africa at BPC


• 28.02.2026 08:45 am
#MiddleEast #Payments

Payment systems across the Middle East are handling heavier day‑to‑day volumes. Cards, wallets, instant transfers and government platforms all run across shared infrastructure, and expectations are uncompromising: payments must clear immediately, remain available and meet regulatory standards without interruption.

The year ahead will be defined less by new rails and more by how reliably existing systems perform as volumes rise across retail, government services, transport and cross‑border commerce. Those pressures concentrate in several parts of the ecosystem where load, risk and regulatory expectations now converge.

1. Fraud pressure follows real‑time adoption

Fraud across the region increasingly reflects authorised activity rather than technical compromise. Social engineering, impersonation scams and account takeover attempts have grown alongside instant transfers and wallet usage, where settlement leaves little time for recovery.

Few researches show authorised push payment fraud and account takeover attempts are rising across several Gulf markets in line with real‑time payment adoption. That trajectory is expected to continue into 2026 as instant transfers and wallet usage expand and scams increasingly exploit customer behaviour more than technical compromise.

These incidents rarely stay within a single channel. Customers are often moved between cards, wallets and account‑based transfers within the same scam, exposing gaps where controls operate in isolation. Banks are therefore connecting fraud signals across systems rather than relying on transaction‑level checks.

Regulators are validating this direction. Supervisory guidance across GCC markets increasingly emphasises response time, customer treatment and auditability for real‑time payments, placing pressure on institutions to demonstrate coordinated fraud controls.

2. Automation becomes operational infrastructure

Automation already underpins fraud monitoring and payment operations across the region as transaction volumes rise. Fraud teams use automated behavioural analysis to prioritise alerts, while operations teams rely on similar tools to detect settlement issues, merchant anomalies and capacity stress.

In 2026, the emphasis is governance rather than novelty. Automated decisions are expected to be explainable and defensible under regulatory review, reflecting a broader regional trend toward tighter oversight of digital payments as they become more closely tied to public services and national infrastructure.

As real‑time and wallet‑based payments expand, automation has become a practical requirement for maintaining consistency and uptime, not a separate innovation track.

3. Modernisation runs alongside live systems

Payments modernisation across the Middle East is taking place while systems remain live. Most banks and switches operate multiple platforms in parallel, migrating volumes gradually while maintaining service continuity. Issuing and acquiring environments are expected to support traditional card programmes alongside wallets, QR payments and account‑to‑account schemes, creating pressure for consistent settlement, reporting and risk controls across payment types.

Regional initiatives underline how much coordination is now required. National instant payment platforms such as the UAE’s Aani continue to expand transaction volumes while coexisting with established card and wallet ecosystems. MDP modernised its processing operations, unifying all solutions under modern technological stack to expand across MEA. Modern platforms are being used to add capacity, connect new participants and support regulatory change without destabilising heavily used services.,

4. Merchant acceptance exposes scale issues

Merchant payments are expanding rapidly across the region, supported by traditional terminals, SoftPOS and smartphone‑based acceptance tools. These models extend acceptance among SMEs and service providers, particularly in retail and hospitality. Industry data shows SoftPOS adoption accelerated through 2024 and 2025 as regulators approved contactless acceptance on consumer devices, lowering the cost of entry for smaller merchants.

At higher volumes, merchant environments expose operational weaknesses quickly. Onboarding controls, settlement accuracy and dispute handling become critical. In 2026, banks are treating merchant acceptance with the same discipline applied to core banking and payment rails.

5. Payments embedded into transport and public services

Payment systems across the Middle East are increasingly embedded into transport, tolling and municipal services. In several cities, commuters can already pay fares using standard bank cards or digital wallets rather than dedicated transit products. Regional transport authorities continue to expand open‑loop acceptance as part of wider mobility programmes.

Digital fare collection is already in use across the region. In Ajman, O‑CITY supports a unified bus fare system that reduces cash handling and gives the transport authority clearer visibility of usage. Egypt’s national railway, ENR, has taken a similar approach, with electronic ticketing now supporting high‑volume rail journeys.

These environments place specific demands on payment infrastructure. Volumes peak at predictable times, transaction values are low and outages are immediately visible. When transport payments fail, the impact extends beyond banking into daily life.

Where pressure will sit through 2026

Across the Middle East, payment systems are being judged less as banking products and more as part of national digital infrastructure. The expectations influencing 2026 are practical ones: systems must stay available, with transactions moving securely and cleanly between any channels, and institutions must show they can respond quickly when something goes wrong.

The players that make the most progress this year will be those that treat visibility, platform discipline and compliance as everyday work rather than project language. The region’s growth in commerce, mobility and public services depends on payment systems that run predictably. In 2026, credibility will come from how well these systems perform when volumes rise and when customers move between channels without noticing the machinery underneath.