Geidea announced that it has expanded its operations into the United Arab Emirates and will offer an extensive suite of value-added services and seamless payment solutions by partnering with Magnati for UAE-based companies across retail, F&B, wholesale, hospitality and healthcare.
Launched in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2008, Geidea provides over 700,000 payment terminals (POS) across the region and serves over 139,000 trusted merchants including regional and international brands, SMEs as well as e-commerce players.
Geidea’s recent expansion into the UAE follows its launch into the Egyptian market in June 2021 and forms a part of its vision to make payments and commerce technology accessible, affordable and intuitive for everyone.
Commenting on Geidea’s entrance into the UAE market, Abdullah Al-Othman, Founder and Chairman of Geidea, said: “Over a decade ago, Geidea began with the critical mission of reshaping the payments industry by building a suite of solutions that would make payments more accessible, affordable and intuitive for businesses of all sizes. Since then, we have grown into a market leading business, with over 75% of market share in POS terminals within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Today I am proud to announce our expansion into one of the key digital economic hubs of the region, the United Arab Emirates, a long-trusted partner to Saudi Arabia.”
Partnership with Magnati
As part of its expansion, Geidea has entered into a strategic partnership with Magnati, a leader in the payment solutions in the industry, focused on acquiring, issuer processing and acquiring processing. Magnati provides institutional and government, merchant with an intelligent payments platform that monetizes data, using next generation technology to deliver improved customer experience and increased efficiency.
The partnership marks Geidea’s first major agreement in the UAE market and will see Geidea as a Payment Service Provider for Magnati, thereby accelerating seamless digital payments acceptance and increasing its footprint in the UAE.
Moving forward, the partnership will also extend to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other markets in the GCC enabling Magnati to strategically expand its cross-border business into the geographies that Geidea is based in – while boosting e-commerce and m-commerce capabilities for Magnati’s clients and spurring digital transformation.
Through this partnership, merchants will benefit from Magnati’s tailored payment solutions, allowing them to accept a wide range of digital payments through a secure, single and seamless API integrated platform, making payments more accessible, affordable and intuitive.
“In line with our vision to deliver strong value to our partnerships, we are proud to collaborate with Geidea, who will simplify payment acceptance through Magnati’s payment solutions. Magnati is leading the change in digital payments landscape by creating new experiences and shaping the future with offering payments as a platform, seamless integrations, and value adds. With Magnati’s reach and Geidea’s fintech experience, we will be able to synergize our capabilities and boost digital payments growth in UAE and GCC and North Africa,” said Ramana Kumar, CEO of Magnati.
Discussing the partnership with Magnati, Sailesh Malhotra, General Manager – GCC, Geidea, said: “We are proud to announce our partnership with Magnati, a prominent like-minded fintech, as we expand our presence into the UAE, one of the region’s most important markets. The collaboration will enable us to serve both the public and private sector, with the same customer-focused approach that we’ve used to great success in Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, our clients are our success stories. We look forward to working with Magnati and continuing to build our presence across the UAE and the rest of the region.”
Salim Awan, MD – Institutional Payments at Magnati, said: “We are at a pivotal moment in the payment industry, when payments can no longer be an additional step in the e-commerce process but instead, must offer customers the highest levels of ease and convenience. Our partnership with Geidea is all about simplifying payments for users, and we will work together with Geidea to introduce new channels and technologies. Magnati is committed to accelerating innovation with our partners to unlock the possibilities of payments.”
With nearly three out of four (73%) of consumers in the UAE shopping online more frequently than they did before the pandemic, according to a recent Mastercard survey, having an online payments presence has become a huge focus for small businesses.
Geidea made history in 2021, becoming the first non-banking institution to be granted an acquiring license in Saudi Arabia and focusing on its strategic expansion into the largest markets across the Middle East.
