Financial Accountant

Huru ties up with Paymentology and Bitpanda to broaden UAE ecosystem. Huru, the Emirati-owned financial app licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE as a stored-value facility and retail payment services provider, has formalised two partnerships that it says will extend its platform from salary management into card payments on the UAE's domestic scheme and regulated digital-asset brokerage. Both agreements were signed at the Seamless Fintech Middle East 2026 conference in Dubai. The platform reports AED 3 billion in annualised salaries flowing through its accounts from more than 24,000 employers, and says it is targeting the issuance of approximately one million Universal Accounts over the next 12 months in alignment with the Central Bank of the UAE's (CBUAE) push for the Universal Account framework. The two deals. The first partnership extends Huru's existing relationship with Paymentology, a card-processing infrastructure provider active across emerging markets. The immediate commercial output is the planned launch of Huru's card on Jaywan, the UAE's domestic card scheme, scheduled for Q4 2026. Nauman Hassan, regional director MENA at Paymentology, described Jaywan as "an important step forward for the UAE's payments ecosystem, creating greater choice for customers while strengthening the country's domestic payments infrastructure." The second agreement brings in Bitpanda Enterprise, the business-to-business arm of the Vienna-headquartered digital-asset platform. Under the arrangement, Huru account holders will be able to buy, sell and hold digital assets from within the Huru app. The editor's note attached to the release is worth emphasising: the crypto brokerage services are provided by Bitpanda Broker MENA FZCO, a Virtual Asset Service Provider licensed by Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), and sit outside Huru's own CBUAE licence perimeter. That structural separation matters for compliance purposes and limits the regulatory risk that sits directly on Huru's balance sheet. Market context and regulatory read-across. The Jaywan launch is commercially significant beyond its product value. Domestic card schemes have been a policy priority across Gulf Cooperation Council states as governments seek to reduce dependence on Visa and Mastercard rails and retain more of the interchange economics onshore. Huru's position as a salary-receipt platform integrated with the Wage Protection System gives it a distribution route that many fintech challengers lack: employers, not consumers, drive initial account activation. The digital-asset layer places Huru in a growing cohort of Gulf-based neobanks and e-money platforms that are embedding regulated crypto access as a feature rather than a standalone product. VARA's licensing regime, introduced through Dubai Law No. 4 of 2022, provides the regulatory foundation for this kind of embedded access. The ADGM in Abu Dhabi operates a parallel framework. Both are broadly permissive relative to European equivalents, though firms must maintain clear structural separation between licensed banking activities and virtual-asset services, as Huru's own disclosure illustrates. The Universal Account model, which gives migrant workers a portable IBAN account that travels with them between employers, is directly responsive to CBUAE policy and addresses a documented financial-inclusion gap in the UAE's large migrant-worker population. The nine exchange-house partnerships Huru references extend its remittance reach without requiring Huru itself to hold a full money-transfer licence in each corridor. Chief executive Abhimanyu Girotra said the platform was built around a straightforward question: "What does someone actually need to do with their salary after it arrives?" That framing positions the Universal Account as an infrastructure layer rather than a product, which is the more durable commercial story here. Huru has not disclosed its current active-account base, revenue figures or unit economics, so the one-million-account target cannot yet be benchmarked against conversion or engagement data. AI level 1 of 5: written by Darlyn Ho; AI helped with tone, structure or wording; edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the levels mean

Huru taps Paymentology and Bitpanda to extend its account services. Huru aims to issue about one million Universal Accounts over the next 12 months as it adds a Jaywan card and digital asset access. Get the hottest Fintech Middle East News once a month in your Inbox Huru has signed partnerships with Paymentology and Bitpanda Enterprise at Seamless Fintech Middle East 2026. The Emirati-owned app is licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE). Paymentology will keep processing Huru's cards. It will also support the Q4 2026 launch of a Huru card on Jaywan, the UAE's domestic card scheme. Bitpanda Enterprise will let users buy, sell and hold digital assets in the Huru app through Bitpanda's regulated platform. More than 24,000 employers pay a combined AED 3 billion in annualised salaries into Huru accounts, the company says. Huru has also partnered with nine exchange houses after the CBUAE's push for Universal Accounts. It aims to issue about one million of these accounts over the next 12 months. A Universal Account is a digital account in the holder's own name, with its own IBAN. Unlike a salary card, it stays with the holder when they change jobs. Users can receive their salary, send money home, pay bills, top up their phones, save and use a card. They can also access credit for unexpected expenses through Huru's Quick Cash, and the app comes in seven languages. Employers keep their usual payroll process. Huru works with the Wage Protection System (WPS), so pay cycles stay the same. Salary files still go through the employer's bank, while Huru handles account onboarding and transition support. "By bringing together card processing and new financial capabilities around the Universal Account, we are building an ecosystem that can grow with our customers' needs while expanding access to regulated financial services across the UAE," said Abhimanyu Girotra, Chief Executive Officer of Huru. "Our longstanding partnership with Huru has enabled us to support its growth and evolution over time, and we are proud to play a role in this latest milestone," said Nauman Hassan, Regional Director MENA at Paymentology.

Paymentology marks five years in LATAM, Mexico at core of growth. By Paloma Duran | Journalist and Industry Analyst - Mon, 09/28/2026 - 11:34 DIA assistant Paymentology, a global issuer-processor, marks five years in Latin America with Mexico at the center of its regional expansion across more than 15 markets. The company has evolved from card processing into credit, BNPL, Cards-as-a-Service, cross-border payments and stablecoin-linked cards through its cloud-native Lume platform, serving clients such as albo, UnDosTres, Rain and ARQ. The strategy targets Mexico's growing demand for embedded finance as banks and fintechs seek scalable infrastructure to launch digital financial products. Paymentology, a global issuer-processor, has completed five years of operations in Latin America and is positioning Mexico as the anchor of its next phase of regional growth. Over that period, the company has moved beyond card issuing and processing to build a platform that supports credit, embedded finance and stablecoin-linked payments for banks, fintechs and other financial institutions across more than 15 markets in the region. The milestone comes as Latin America's financial ecosystem shifts from the rapid adoption of digital payments toward a more sophisticated stage, in which credit, accounts, wallets and other financial services are bundled into integrated digital experiences. Paymentology has adapted its offering to that transition, aiming to help clients design and launch new financial products rather than simply digitize transactions. According to Pedro Blanco Pinto, Head of Business Development for LAC, Paymentology, the region has changed profoundly in five years. Banks, fintechs and new market entrants now seek more flexible products tailored to customer needs, he says, and the company's value lies in pairing global technology with local market knowledge to turn new concepts into scalable products quickly. From Card Processing to Credit and Stablecoins The centerpiece of the company's recent evolution is Lume, the cloud-native issuing and processing platform launched in 2026. Lume combines global scale with market-level localization through regional instances and is designed to support emerging use cases, including stablecoin-linked payments, tokenization, embedded finance and digital credit. The platform runs on a multi-cloud architecture that integrates infrastructure from Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, and it replaces legacy VPN connectivity with a Zero Trust security model based on identity authentication, as reported by MBN. The launch followed a US$175 million strategic investment from Apis Partners and Aspirity Partners. Rising demand for more modern lending options has also pushed Paymentology into credit. Its platform now supports buy now, pay later (BNPL), revolving credit and installment loans, alongside Cards-as-a-Service, cross-border payments, multicurrency accounts and new payment experiences. The expansion builds on plans the company outlined in early 2025, when it announced Pay Credit, a proprietary ledger-based system allowing banks to manage revolving credit without relying on third-party providers. The company's architecture pairs a single global platform and API with regional instances that address local requirements on regulation, data residency, performance and operational continuity. This allows institutions to begin operating in one country and expand into others without replacing their processing infrastructure, a key consideration for fintechs with multi-market ambitions. Paymentology has also strengthened its partner ecosystem, working more closely with BIN sponsors and reseller partners to lower entry barriers for fintechs and new issuers. That approach reflects a strategy the company detailed last year, focused on Tier 2 and Tier 3 banks and on fintech resellers that give smaller players a scalable route to enterprise-grade processing, according to MBN. Mexican Clients Anchor Regional Footprint Paymentology's client roster illustrates the breadth of models it supports. The company has enabled embedded credit and Cards-as-a-Service for UnDosTres and supported the evolution of albo's digital financial services. When the albo partnership was announced, the Mexico City-based neobank served more than two million users and had reported US$6.5 billion in annual transaction volume for 2023. Paymentology has also worked with Rain to develop stablecoin-linked physical and virtual cards for consumers and corporate employees, and with ARQ to expand cross-border transfers across Latin America and the Caribbean. Blanco underscores that the company combines over two decades of issuer-processing experience with an architecture built for the next generation of payments. With a presence in 68 countries, its regional and multi-cloud infrastructure is designed to adapt to each market's requirements while reinforcing availability and operational continuity. A Market Moving Toward Embedded Finance Looking ahead, Latin America remains a priority region, with Mexico at the center of the strategy alongside Colombia and Central America, while South America and the Caribbean offer new opportunities. The company plans to keep investing in technology and local capabilities, with particular focus on embedded finance, AI applied to payments, agentic commerce, tokenization, stablecoins, cross-border payments and new issuing and credit models. Mexico's market dynamics support that focus. Galileo's 2026 Adaptive Banking Report found that 80% of companies in Mexico see embedded finance as their primary expansion opportunity, making the country Latin America's leading market for the model, MBN reported. At the same time, the local fintech ecosystem is maturing: FinTech Mexico's Insights 2026 counts 1,100 active entities in the region's second-largest ecosystem, with priorities shifting from rapid expansion toward sustainable operations and technological maturity, according to MBN. Stablecoins are also gaining ground, having moved in 2025 from mostly trading use toward operational roles in payments, treasury and cross-border finance, as noted in MBN. For Blanco, the five-year mark matters less than the opportunities ahead, from credit and new issuing models to stablecoins, tokenization and increasingly integrated financial services. Paymentology intends to grow alongside its clients and partners by combining its global technology with teams that understand each market in depth.