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Home-grown payments platform Ziina launches Violet lifestyle membership. Ziina Violet offers a new way for UAE residents to get real value from everyday living Life in the UAE moves fast. People commute, work, eat out, stay active, shop online, travel often, and rely on brands that help their day run smoothly. At the same time, consumers are becoming more selective. They want value they can feel, transparency they can trust and benefits that genuinely fit into their routines instead of sitting unused in a loyalty account. Ziina, the UAE's home-grown payments platform, believes consumers deserve better. The company has launched Ziina Violet, a lifestyle membership designed around real life in the UAE. For Dh100 per month, members receive more than Dh850 in monthly value from everyday brands they already use, along with one feature many UAE consumers will immediately appreciate - zero currency fees on global spending using the Ziina Card. For frequent travellers, online shoppers and families paying in foreign currencies, this matters. Foreign exchange markups quietly add up, especially when booking flights and hotels, subscribing to streaming services or shopping internationally online. Ziina Violet removes those hidden extras, letting members pay globally at the true currency exchange rate. In addition, Ziina Violet brings together a curated selection of lifestyle benefits from brands UAE residents love. Members receive recurring monthly benefits from SALT, ounass, deliveroo, classpass, CAFU, yango, bateel el'an, washmen, letswork, bake my day and nordvpn, creating a single platform of value that covers food, shopping, transport, wellness and daily essentials. Instead of collecting points, managing multiple programmes or navigating complicated redemption processes, Ziina Violet focuses on something simpler: recurring monthly benefits people can actually use. Ziina Violet is designed to make everyday life in the UAE feel easier and more rewarding. It brings together brands people love in one place, removes friction from spending and gives consumers real everyday value. Faisal Toukan Co-founder and CEO of Ziina Tackling loyalty fatigue. The UAE is one of the world's most digitally engaged markets. The median age is 32.8. Mobile payments are widespread. Residents live globally but expect convenience locally. At the same time, loyalty fatigue is real. Although the UAE's loyalty industry continues to grow, many programmes struggle with fragmented experiences, limited relevance or benefits that look appealing on paper but rarely translate into something useful. Violet was built directly in response to that consumer sentiment. Ziina's team spent months listening to users and studying how people actually move through their day. What they heard repeatedly was that UAE consumers want simplicity, predictability and benefits grounded in everyday life. Unlike traditional rewards programmes, Ziina Violet is built around daily living. You continue doing what you already do by eating out, commuting, shopping, working out and travelling with brands you already use and Ziina Violet gives you recurring benefits from those same brands, all in one place. As the UAE continues to embrace a mobile-first lifestyle, Ziina Violet reflects a wider shift in consumer expectations: value should be immediate, meaningful and designed around people. For those who live globally, spend frequently and enjoy the UAE's vibrant lifestyle, Ziina Violet offers a compelling proposition: one membership, one card, and one unified experience designed to make daily life feel smarter and smoother. Ziina Violet is now available to all users through the Ziina app. This content comes from Reach by Gulf News, which is the branded content team of GN Media.

Ziina debuts first digital card with Visa to turn payments into instant spending power. Ziina, a leading licensed UAE fintech platform offering both acquiring and issuing, announces the launch of Ziina Card, its first digital card powered by Visa. Available directly within Apple Wallet, Ziina Card transforms a user's Ziina balance into instant spending power, enabling both individuals and businesses to spend money the moment it is received. By partnering with Visa, Ziina ensures global acceptance, robust security, and access to exclusive rewards, reinforcing its mission to make money movement in the UAE faster, simpler, and more contextual. Ziina Card represents a major milestone for the company and its growing user base. Tens of thousands of consumers and businesses had requested the feature, making it the single most anticipated product launch since Ziina's founding. "We've always believed that financial services should adapt to how people actually live and work," said Faisal Toukan, Co-Founder and CEO of Ziina. "Ziina Card is the natural evolution of that vision - your money, always accessible, working the way you need it to." "Visa is delighted to partner with Ziina to bring instant, secure, and globally accepted spending power to users in the UAE. Ziina's Visa card is a great example of how innovation can deliver faster, simpler payment experiences for consumers and businesses alike," said Salima Gutieva, Vice President and UAE Country Manager for Visa. The launch of Ziina Card comes at a pivotal time for the UAE, where both SMEs and consumers increasingly rely on digital payments as the backbone of economic activity. SMEs account for more than 94% of companies in the UAE, contributing over 63% of GDP, yet face persistent cash flow challenges due to delayed client payments. Meanwhile, consumers are demanding seamless, instant, and secure ways to transact in an increasingly cashless economy. In April, Ziina introduced Tap to Pay on iPhone, enabling businesses to accept contactless payments securely without the need for traditional point-of-sale hardware. With Ziina Card, the company now completes the picture - helping users not only accept money instantly but also spend it immediately, creating a fully integrated payment experience. Ziina Card addresses these challenges head-on by creating a unified flow between receiving and spending, something traditional banks have struggled to deliver. By eliminating the "cash-out" middleman, Ziina gives businesses and individuals real-time access to funds with enriched data, improved visibility, and uncompromising security. For SMEs and freelancers, Ziina has long been the fastest way to get paid by clients. With the launch of Ziina Card, the platform now closes the loop on expense management, giving companies immediate access to earnings to pay suppliers, manage purchases, and control spending - all within a single ecosystem. By consolidating payments and expenses under one roof, businesses gain transparency, speed, and cost efficiency without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Each transaction comes with enriched merchant-level data for easier accounting, while full Central Bank licensing reinforces security and trust. This dual capability - acquiring and expense services in one place - sets Ziina apart as the financial partner of choice for tens of thousands of businesses across the UAE. Through its partnership with Visa, Ziina is extending additional value by unlocking exclusive business rewards, including discounts on essential tools such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Freshworks, SignEasy, and Zendesk. These benefits equip SMEs with affordable digital infrastructure to scale efficiently in a competitive market. Seamless Spending and Meaningful Context for Modern Spenders For individuals, Ziina Card turns every dirham received on Ziina into instant purchasing power. Instead of waiting to cash out, users can tap to pay with Apple Pay anywhere cards are accepted - whether it's using dinner money from a friend to cover a ride home or splitting group expenses at the end of an evening. Each transaction preserves the social context of the payment - the who, what, and why - while enriched merchant details inside the Ziina app provide greater visibility and control. In this way, Ziina extends the same seamless experience that has made it the go-to way to get paid, now into everyday spending. The launch of Ziina Card builds on Ziina's introduction of Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android earlier this year, which gave businesses across the UAE a modern, hardware-free way to accept contactless payments. Together, Tap to Pay and Ziina Card create a complete ecosystem: the fastest way to get paid, and now the simplest way to spend. As the only licensed startup connecting both sides of the payment journey, Ziina is redefining how money moves in the UAE's digital economy and strengthening its role as the country's homegrown financial partner.

September VC MusingsBy Swati TrivediPosted 1 day ago - Oct 2, 2024, 4:55 PMSeptember brought with it the arrival of the conference season, and ended with the interest rate cuts, harboring in a more optimistic environment for the venture ecosystem. As we gear up to release our Q3 suite of venture investment reports, this was the time to take a look at September and how Q3 wrapped up. The emerging venture markets that we cover span across the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, Turkiye, and Pakistan. After a summer slowdown, the EVMs saw over 365M raised during the month, with no mega-deals, marking a small uptick in month-over-month, while the number of transactions grew by over 9% MoM. Request specific data sets, including data on startups, investors, deals, and more. Reach out to our sales team to explore the full potential of our platform.MENA’s Post-Summer Rebound. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in particular saw a resurgence in venture funding, posting an approximate 60% MoM increase in capital raised and about a 50% uptick in the number of transactions