Tabby has more than 1.5 million active shoppers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Photo: Tabby
Tabby has more than 1.5 million active shoppers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Photo: Tabby
Tabby has more than 1.5 million active shoppers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Photo: Tabby
Tabby has more than 1.5 million active shoppers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Photo: Tabby

Mubadala-backed Tabby teams up with Visa to introduce tap-and-pay BNPL card


Deepthi Nair
  • English
  • Arabic

Dubai-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Tabby has teamed up with digital payments company Visa and payments infrastructure FinTech M2P to unveil the Tabby Visa Card.

The card will make in-store payments easier for customers as digital transactions continue to grow in popularity after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Despite e-commerce growing in popularity, almost 90 per cent of retail shopping in the Middle East still happens offline,” said chief operating officer and co-founder Daniil Barkalov said on Tuesday.

“The Tabby Card will take our in-store solution to new heights, creating a seamless omnichannel experience for customers to pay over time, interest-free.”

The BNPL business model, which allows consumers to make online purchases instantly and spread out their interest-free repayments, has surged since the onset of the pandemic.

The industry is expected to grow by 10 to 15 times by 2025 worldwide, topping $1 trillion in annual gross merchandise volume by some estimates, according to a report by New York data research consultancy CB Insights.

The Tabby Card is currently being offered on an invite-only basis in the UAE. Shoppers can join the waiting list for early access, Tabby said.

“The Tabby Visa Card allows cardholders to evenly distribute the cost of goods at participating merchants, thereby reducing the burden on their budget,” said Shahebaz Khan, Visa’s general manager for the UAE, Bahrain and Oman. “For merchants, this will mean increased sales and better conversion rates.”

The company plans to offer the card in other markets soon.

Tabby’s platform went live in February 2020 and the company has since signed agreements with more than 3,000 global brands and small businesses, including Adidas, Ikea, Bloomingdale’s, Marks & Spencer, Home Centre and Toys R Us.

With more than 1.5 million active shoppers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Tabby’s app allows shoppers to split their purchases into four interest-free payments.

The BNPL provider raised $54 million from Sequoia Capital India and Saudi Arabia’s STV in March this year.

Existing investors Mubadala Investment Capital, Arbor Ventures and Global Founders Capital also participated in the funding round, Tabby said at the time.

Separately, regional FinTech company Kamel Pay joined hands with Mastercard to introduce two prepaid cards and a digital app to meet the needs of businesses and underbanked individuals.

The PayD card is compliant with the UAE’s Wage Protection Scheme and is aimed at the unbanked labour force, providing them with financial services to meet their everyday payment needs, the two companies said on Tuesday.

The card will allow cardholders to use either their card or digital app to purchase goods offline or online from various merchants, as well as pay utility bills and remit money.

This will enable the “much-required financial inclusion for the UAE’s underbanked population”, Kamel Pay chairman Hussain Al Qemzi said.

Meanwhile, the Centiv Card is a tool for companies to replace cash reimbursements and make low-value payments. The card can be used to pay for government services, utility bills, manage employee expenses and eliminate the handling of cash within the organisation, Kamel Pay and Mastercard said.

The prepaid cards and app will serve consumers and small businesses who have previously been excluded from the formal financial system and empower them with the tools and services to enhance and protect their financial well-being, JK Khalil, Mastercard's Mena East general manager.

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Men's wheelchair 800m T34: 1. Walid Ktila (TUN) 1.44.79; 2. Mohammed Al Hammadi (UAE) 1.45.88; 3. Isaac Towers (GBR) 1.46.46.

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Note: d/n = day/night

EU Russia

The EU imports 90 per cent  of the natural gas used to generate electricity, heat homes and supply industry, with Russia supplying almost 40 per cent of EU gas and a quarter of its oil. 

Museum of the Future in numbers
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  •  30,000 square metres is its total area
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UAE tour of Zimbabwe

All matches in Bulawayo
Friday, Sept 26 – First ODI
Sunday, Sept 28 – Second ODI
Tuesday, Sept 30 – Third ODI
Thursday, Oct 2 – Fourth ODI
Sunday, Oct 5 – First T20I
Monday, Oct 6 – Second T20I

Why it pays to compare

A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.

Route 1: bank transfer

The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.

Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount

Total received: €4,670.30 

Route 2: online platform

The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.

Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction

Total received: €4,756

The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.

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Starring: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry

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Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla

Rating: 3/5

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Second Test: October 10-14, at Maharashtra

Third Test: October 19-23, at Ranchi

WHAT IS GRAPHENE?

It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.

Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But when they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.

By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.

In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. 

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Awar Qalb

Director: Jamal Salem

Starring: Abdulla Zaid, Joma Ali, Neven Madi and Khadija Sleiman

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Venue and schedule Sharjah Cricket Stadium, December 14 to 17

Teams

Maratha Arabians Leading player: Virender Sehwag; Top picks: Mohammed Amir, Imad Wasim; UAE players: Shaiman Anwar, Zahoor Khan

Bengal Lions Leading player: Sarfraz Ahmed; Top picks: Sunil Narine, Mustafizur Rahman; UAE players: Mohammed Naveed, Rameez Shahzad

Kerala Kings Leading player: Eoin Morgan; Top picks: Kieron Pollard, Sohail Tanvir; UAE players: Rohan Mustafa, Imran Haider

Pakhtoons Leading player: Shahid Afridi; Top picks: Fakhar Zaman, Tamim Iqbal; UAE players: Amjad Javed, Saqlain Haider

Punjabi Legends Leading player: Shoaib Malik; Top picks: Hasan Ali, Chris Jordan; UAE players: Ghulam Shabber, Shareef Asadullah

Team Sri Lanka Cricket Will be made up of Colombo players who won island’s domestic limited-overs competition

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Updated: May 10, 2022, 10:38 AM