Choosing payment providers for MENA: what to ask in each market

“We need a PSP for MENA” is a sentence that hides six different problems. Saudi Arabia runs on a domestic debit scheme. The UAE licenses who may acquire. Kuwait routes debit cards through its own network. Egypt pays in cash references and wallets and has had foreign currency shortages. Jordan pays by instant transfer. Morocco reorganised its whole acquiring market in 2026. A provider that is strong in one of these can be weak or absent in the next.

This article sets out the questions to ask payment providers in each market, with the facts behind them, a comparison table and a worked shortlist. It does not repeat the method for deciding how many providers you need, which is in our article on how many PSPs per market, or the case for a backup, which is in single-PSP risk.

What should you ask every provider in MENA?

Start with questions that apply everywhere, then add the market-specific ones below.

1. Where do you acquire? Domestic acquiring and cross-border acquiring give different results with the same cards. Ask for each country, not for “the region”.
2. Which domestic schemes and rails do you process natively? mada, KNET, Meeza, Fawry, CliQ and Moroccan bank cards each need a local connection.
3. What licence do you hold, and where? Several MENA regulators license acquiring and payment aggregation directly.
4. How do refunds work for each method? Some methods need extra activation, some have time limits, and cash methods cannot refund to the original method at all.
5. How do you run 3D Secure? Checkout.com recommends applying it to all card payments in the region.
6. What do you settle, when, and at what FX margin? Ask about the charge currency, the settlement currency and the timing.
7. What do you need from us? Some routes need a local entity or bank account; others can serve a foreign merchant.

What should you ask in Saudi Arabia?

Whether the provider can process mada as mada. Checkout.com’s documentation says that processing mada cards within Saudi Arabia requires a merchant ID from a Saudi acquirer; outside the Kingdom, a co-badged card behaves as a Visa or Mastercard debit card. mada-only cards need the local route. Ask the provider whether it holds a Saudi merchant ID for you, how often it refreshes the mada BIN list, and how it configures Apple Pay for mada.

Ask about captures too. Checkout.com notes that mada does not support partial captures or authorisation requests, so a provider should be able to explain how it handles ship-later orders and cancellations. Then check STC Pay and BNPL such as Tabby, which most Saudi checkouts offer alongside mada. The Saudi Arabia guide covers the consumer and tax rules.

What should you ask in the UAE?

Which licence the provider holds. According to Pinsent Masons, the Central Bank’s Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Regulation came into force on 15 July 2021 and requires a licence for nine retail payment services, including merchant acquiring and payment aggregation. Exempted persons are mainly banks licensed by the Central Bank. Existing providers had a one-year transition period, so by now any provider collecting card payments in the UAE should be able to name its licence or its bank partner.

The UAE is mostly an international card and wallet market, as our UAE guide explains, so the other questions are about approval by issuer, Apple Pay support and BNPL.

What should you ask in Kuwait?

Whether the provider supports KNET end to end, including refunds. Checkout.com’s documentation describes KNET as a redirect flow in KWD: the shopper is sent to a KNET page to pay and then returned to the merchant. It lists full, partial and multiple partial refunds, but says the merchant must ask its bank to have KNET activate the refund API. It also voids a payment if the shopper pays more than seven minutes after reaching the KNET page.

So ask: is refund activation part of onboarding, who contacts the bank, and how are expired KNET sessions reported? A provider that supports KNET payments but not KNET refunds leaves you refunding by bank transfer.

What should you ask in Egypt?

Three things: cash, wallets and currency. Fawry turns an online order into a reference paid in cash or in the Fawry app. EBANX’s documentation lists amounts from EGP 1 to EGP 100,000, a seven-day expiry, and statuses that move from pending to confirmed when the shopper pays. Ask how the provider reports late payments and expiries, and how it refunds a cash payment.

Wallets are the fast-growing rail. The Central Bank of Egypt reported 60 million mobile wallets at the end of 2025, with transactions of about EGP 4 trillion, according to Business Today Egypt. Vodafone Cash is one of them. Ask which wallets the provider collects from, and whether it can refund to them.

Then currency. Foreign currency card limits in Egypt are set bank by bank. Egyptian Streets reported in September 2024 that the National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr raised foreign currency spending limits on credit cards for international transactions to USD 5,000, after raising credit card limits by 50% in June. Ask whether the provider charges in EGP through local acquiring, how and when it converts, and what happens to settlement if foreign currency becomes scarce again. The Egypt guide covers the rest.

What should you ask in Jordan and Morocco?

In Jordan, whether the provider supports CliQ. JoPACC’s end-of-year report shows CliQ, the national instant payment system, doubling to 167.92 million transactions in 2025, with 2.13 million users. A provider that offers only cards misses a rail that doubled its volume in a year.

In Morocco, which acquirer the provider works with since the market changed. La Vie Eco reports that CMI completed the transfer of its card acquiring business on 31 January 2026, and the market moved to a multi-acquirer model on 1 February 2026. Seven payment institutions owned by CMI’s shareholder banks now acquire, with CMI processing for them, and merchants were allocated by the bank holding their account. Bank Al-Maghrib also capped domestic interchange at 0.65% in October 2024. Ask the provider which acquirer it uses and whether its pricing reflects the new structure.

How do the markets compare?

Market	Domestic scheme or rail	First question for a provider	Watch out for
Saudi Arabia	mada	Do you hold a Saudi merchant ID for mada?	No partial captures; Apple Pay configuration
UAE	International cards, Apple Pay	Which CBUAE licence or bank partner do you use?	Unlicensed collection
Kuwait	KNET	Do you support KNET refunds?	Refund API activation by the bank; seven-minute sessions
Egypt	Fawry, wallets, Meeza	Do you charge and settle in EGP locally?	Foreign currency limits; cash refunds
Jordan	CliQ	Do you collect by CliQ?	Card-only coverage
Morocco	Moroccan bank cards	Which acquirer do you use since February 2026?	Changing contracts and pricing

Worked example: a shortlist for three markets

Example figures and provider names, for illustration only.

An online fashion retailer enters Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. It expects 50% of MENA volume from Saudi Arabia, 30% from the UAE and 20% from Egypt, and it talks to three providers.

Question	Provider A	Provider B	Provider C
mada with a Saudi merchant ID	Yes	No, international debit only	Yes
UAE licence	CBUAE licensed	Bank partner	No UAE acquiring
Fawry and Egyptian wallets	No	Yes	No
Settles EGP locally	No	Yes	No
BNPL and STC Pay	Yes	No	Yes

A covers Saudi Arabia and the UAE, B covers Egypt, and C is a second mada route for the market with half the volume. That is three providers for three markets, with the backup where the money is. Provider B alone would have looked attractive on price, but it would have sent every Saudi mada card down a cross-border route.

What are the common mistakes?

• Asking about “MENA coverage”. Ask country by country and method by method.
• Accepting international debit processing for mada. It works for co-badged cards and fails for mada-only cards.
• Forgetting refunds. KNET refund activation and cash-method refunds need answers before launch.
• Ignoring licences. In the UAE, collection must go through a licensed provider or bank.
• Pricing in USD for Egypt. Shoppers face bank limits and conversion; charge in EGP where you can.
• Not reviewing after market changes. Morocco’s acquiring market changed in 2026; provider answers from 2025 may be out of date.

How does Omno help choose and run MENA providers?

Omno puts one API in front of the providers for each market. PSP eligibility rules by country, method, currency and customer group decide which providers may take each payment, routing chooses among them, and if a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, the payment moves to the next provider in the rule until one accepts. Reporting compares providers on the same definitions. Adding a provider for a new market is configuration rather than a new integration. The payment orchestration page shows how providers are configured.