How does a Tabby payment work?
At checkout the shopper chooses Tabby and the merchant creates a checkout session with the order details. The shopper is redirected to Tabby, signs in or registers with their phone number, and Tabby makes a credit decision in real time. If approved, the shopper pays the first instalment with a card and the payment moves to authorised. The merchant then verifies the status with Tabby, not just the browser redirect, and sends a capture to confirm the order; only captured payments are settled to the merchant. Pay in 4 splits the price into four monthly payments, while Pay in 3 and longer plans exist for some products. In Saudi Arabia, longer plans for larger purchases use a Murabaha structure with a fixed profit agreed upfront.
Why does Tabby matter for merchants?
Instalments are a normal way to shop in the Gulf, especially for electronics, fashion, furniture and travel. Tabby reported more than 25 million registered users and over 65,000 businesses across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait in June 2026. When it raised USD 233 million at a USD 6.5 billion valuation in September 2026, Wamda reported 70,000 business partners and more than USD 18 billion in annualised transaction volume. Tabby is now headquartered in Saudi Arabia. For merchants, BNPL raises average order value and conversion on higher-priced items, because the shopper sees a smaller amount to pay today. Tabby pays the merchant and takes on the repayment risk, so the merchant is not exposed if a shopper misses an instalment. It holds a BNPL licence and, since June 2026, consumer and SME finance licences from SAMA in Saudi Arabia, and since April 2026 a stored value facilities licence from the Central Bank of the UAE.
What can go wrong?
The first issue is rejection: Tabby declines shoppers it cannot approve, and the merchant does not control that decision. Checkout sessions expire 20 minutes after creation by default and the payment becomes expired about ten minutes later, so slow shoppers fall out of the flow. Merchants who rely on the redirect instead of checking the payment status can ship orders that were never authorised. Partial shipments need care: the capture amount has to match what is being confirmed, and remaining amounts must be captured or closed explicitly. Authorised payments that are not captured within 21 days may be captured by Tabby automatically, which causes reconciliation surprises. Refunds must start within 180 days of payment creation and are blocked while a dispute is open, so returns handled late in the season need to be processed before that window closes.
How would Omno handle Tabby?
A merchant would create the Tabby session from the same payment request it uses for other methods and show Tabby in the hosted checkout. The authorised status would be checked with Tabby before success is reported, and capture could be automatic or sent through one API when the order ships. The final status would reach the merchant by webhook, which is the source of truth. Rules set by the merchant could show Tabby only for SAR, AED or KWD orders within the amount range it chooses, and only for categories Tabby accepts. The routing-decision log would record every status change.