Telr

About Telr

Telr is a payments company headquartered in Dubai that provides payment gateway and merchant services to businesses in the Gulf and beyond. It was established in 2014, and its founder and chief executive is Khalil Alami, who has more than two decades of experience in financial services and payments. The company set out to unify a fragmented e-commerce payments ecosystem in the region. Telr's products include payment links, QR codes, digital invoicing, recurring payments, and buy now, pay later options, alongside its own payment technology. Forbes Middle East reported that the company serves more than 35,000 merchants and that it expanded into Jordan and Bahrain in 2024. Telr's own releases describe operations in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan, and an August 2025 interview with Alami said it serves clients in 11 markets. Offices are reported in Saudi Arabia, India and Singapore. A newer product, Telr Incepta, lets entrepreneurs anywhere set up a UAE company in a few hours, open a bank account, connect payments and access more than 50 services. Regulation has been a major theme. In April 2024 Telr received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the UAE for a Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes licence, as Zawya reported. In March 2025 it announced that it had been granted the Retail Payment Services licence, which lets it widen merchant acquiring and payment aggregation inside the UAE after meeting the regulator's conditions. Alami described the recognition as an honour that cements the company's role as a pioneer in digital payments. The company has pursued growth in Saudi Arabia through bank partnerships. In February 2025 it teamed up with Bank AlJazira to support the Kingdom's cashless-economy push, and in April 2025 it announced a partnership with Saudi Awwal Bank to give merchants access to its suite of payment tools. In the August 2025 interview, Alami said Telr merchants would soon be able to accept pay-by-account payments through open banking, and he pointed to the Jaywan national debit card, the Aani instant payments platform and the digital dirham as new methods entering the market. On funding, Forbes Middle East lists Telr as having raised USD 11.8 million, with iMENA and Innovation East among its investors. In December 2019 Wamda reported that the company secured an undisclosed round led by its three largest existing investors, including iMENA, to support expansion across the GCC and the wider Middle East.

Leadership

• Elias Ghanem, Co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer
• Sirish Kumar, Co-founder and Chief Financial Officer
• Khalil Alami, Chief Executive Officer

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