Noqodi
Dubai-based digital wallet and payments company owned by emaratech, part of the Investment Corporation of Dubai, serving government entities, merchants and individuals in the UAE.
Industry: Digital wallet and payments | Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Founded: 2011
About Noqodi
noqodi is a Dubai-based digital wallet and payments company. The name means "my money" in Arabic. It is fully owned by emaratech, a UAE technology and financial services company that is in turn owned by the Investment Corporation of Dubai, and it is regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE. The wallet was launched in May 2019 by Dubai's Department of Finance in collaboration with Smart Dubai and emaratech. It was introduced as a way to pay government and non-government service fees through Dubai Pay, the emirate's government-developed digital payments platform. emaratech said at the time that the wallet was certified to the PCI DSS security standard. Users can fund their wallet by credit card, bank transfer, direct online banking, kiosks and exchange houses, as well as through stored value in the wallet itself. Banks were involved from the early stage. Mashreq partnered with emaratech to introduce the e-wallet, and emaratech also announced a tie-up with Emirates Islamic to enable electronic payments through noqodi. Sharjah Islamic Bank later partnered with noqodi to improve its digital payment services. In September 2022 Mastercard announced a partnership with noqodi to expand digital payment acceptance across the UAE. Under the arrangement, noqodi's payment solutions were integrated with Mastercard Payment Gateway Services so that customers could pay by tapping a card or device on a merchant's phone, with contactless payments offered for selected government and private-sector services. In January 2025 Checkout.com announced a strategic partnership with noqodi, describing it as a payment gateway and financial service provider. Checkout.com agreed to connect its payment technology to the noqodi platform, with the stated aims of faster processing, fraud prevention and a wider range of payment methods for the government entities and businesses that use noqodi. The announcement quoted Remo Giovanni Abbondandolo, Checkout.com's general manager for MENA, and Zahi Kallab, general manager of noqodi. No financial terms were disclosed. According to profiles published by Entrepreneur Middle East and Gulf Business in 2025, noqodi has expanded beyond the wallet into merchant acquiring and card issuance. Gulf Business described an integrated set-up in which the wallet and card rails run as a single platform, and said small and medium-sized businesses can onboard digitally, consolidate their payment channels in the wallet and automate reconciliation. Entrepreneur Middle East listed possible card products including tourist cards, virtual cards and expense cards for SMEs and corporates. noqodi's parent, emaratech, was reported to handle more than 50,000 transactions a day across services such as visa, residency and national ID processing.
Leadership
- Fahad Alzarooni, Chief Executive Officer
- Zahi Kallab, General Manager
- Thaer Sulieman, General Manager