Tabby launches Tabby Cash digital account in UAE

Published: 2026-07-16T08:45:00.000Z

Tabby has launched Tabby Cash, a fee-free UAE spending account with a cashback debit card, marking its expansion from BNPL into full financial services. More than 150,000 people are already using the product ahead of its wider rollout.

Tabby built a $4.5 billion business on a simple promise: buy now, pay for it later, with no interest and no fees. That promise is now being applied to a much bigger problem. The Middle East's most valuable fintech has launched Tabby Cash, a fee-free spending account with a cashback debit card, marking its formal expansion from a flexible payments platform into a genuine everyday money management app in the UAE. Tabby Cash is the first product built on the Stored Value Facilities license the company secured from the Central Bank of the UAE in April 2026, a regulatory milestone that allows Tabby to hold customer funds directly rather than simply facilitating payments on top of existing bank accounts. The account is free to set up, carries no account or card fees, and offers unlimited free local transfers, with global transfers planned for a future release. The Tabby Cash Card pays 3% cashback on selected categories and all international spend for Tabby Plus subscribers, or 1% for standard users, and as a launch offer every cardholder earns the full 3% rate until November 1, 2026. The reasoning behind the launch is explicitly framed around cost. Tabby has been vocal about the fact that credit cards in the UAE can carry annual interest rates of 30% to 46% with interest compounding on unpaid balances, that current accounts often require minimum salary thresholds and charge fees for falling below balance requirements, and that international money transfers can cost 75 dirhams or more before exchange rate markups are even applied. Tabby's argument is that a digital-only model without branches or legacy banking infrastructure allows it to strip out those costs structurally rather than offering temporary promotional relief from them. CEO and co-founder Hosam Arab tied the launch directly to the company's founding thesis, saying Tabby was built on the belief that money should be flexible enough to work around a person's life rather than the other way around, and that Tabby Cash extends that same philosophy from spending into how people hold, send, and manage their money more broadly. More than 150,000 people are already using the product ahead of its full public rollout, which will open to all UAE residents over 18 in the coming weeks through a waitlist. The launch lands within a broader financial services buildout that positions Tabby as something considerably larger than a BNPL provider. In Saudi Arabia, its largest market, the company secured consumer and SME finance licenses from the Saudi Central Bank last month, pushing into lending with instalment plans of up to SAR 50,000 and working capital facilities for merchants. Combined with the UAE wallet license and Tabby Cash, the company now has deposits and spending infrastructure in the Emirates and credit infrastructure in the Kingdom, the two structural halves required to become a full financial services platform rather than a checkout feature. That diversification carries additional weight given that Tabby is widely expected to pursue a Tadawul listing, and demonstrating multiple regulated revenue lines beyond point-of-sale credit strengthens that positioning considerably. The scale Tabby is operating at makes this expansion commercially serious rather than experimental. The company serves more than 25 million consumers and 65,000 retailers including SHEIN, Amazon, Adidas, IKEA, Jarir, Samsung, and noon across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait, and processes more than $18 billion in annualized sales volume, up from just over $10 billion at the start of 2026. A secondary share sale backed by HSG and Boyu Capital in October 2025 valued the company at $4.5 billion, making it the most valuable fintech in the MENA region. For the UAE's digital banking landscape, Tabby Cash represents a genuine competitive test for traditional retail banks. A fintech with tens of millions of existing users and deep merchant integration entering current account territory with zero fees and meaningful cashback is a different competitive threat than a standalone neobank building a user base from scratch. Whether Tabby can convert its BNPL trust and daily engagement into people moving their primary spending account over will be the real measure of how far this expansion goes.