Joining me in the studio is Faisal Toukan, co-founder and CEO of Ziina. Faisal, welcome to Wall Street to Mena.
Thank you for having me.
Ziina recently delivered the UAE's first customer-initiated open finance payment. What actually changed for the person tapping their phone today?
In one word — no more IBANs. Previously, people had to type 15-digit codes to send or receive money. That is no longer the case in the UAE. Banks used to operate in silos — each with their own data, their own payment rails. If a customer signed up with a bank, their entire financial life was locked in with that institution. What the UAE has rolled out with open finance is that those banks are now talking to each other. There is a combined layer of plumbing where you can pull data from different financial institutions to make payments easier. Now it is one tap. No codes. And what is coming next is a wide range of services shared across financial sectors — which makes this a very exciting moment for the ecosystem.
You call the best infrastructure the invisible one. Isn't that a strange goal for a founder — to build something people barely notice?
It actually applies beyond financial services. The best technology is meant to be invisible. Most people today put enormous effort into every financial interaction — entering 14 digits, filling in account details, names, addresses. What open finance means is that similar to how one-click payments work online, you just confirm and it is done. Open finance is going to do that across everything — savings, loans, mortgages. It will pull data, pull payments, and work in the background to make your life easier. The best technology does not show up in your day-to-day life. It just works on your behalf.
You also launched Bank on File — the first one-tap recurring payment experience in the UAE. Why does removing that extra step make all the difference?
Previously, recurring payments relied entirely on card schemes — Visa, Mastercard, American Express. One-tap payment takes the bank account you already use every day and turns it into a direct payment rail. Ziina was the first to bring this to market. In the future you can envision it happening for everything — paying rent, leaving a tip walking down the street. No card, no friction. Instantaneous.
Ziina started as a way to avoid exchanging 23-digit IBANs between friends. But that idea has turned into infrastructure the whole country is building on. How did that happen?
We now have over 100,000 active businesses and 200,000 consumers on the platform. What started as isolated products has evolved — businesses are bringing on consumers, consumers are bringing on businesses. One in five people in the UAE has or runs a small business. So naturally, both sides are converging on the platform. Part of our mission at Ziina is to build the infrastructure for anyone to pursue their entrepreneurial goals — which is very much in line with the DNA of the UAE.
The UAE's open finance framework is already live. Is it the regulatory backbone for what you are building next?
The initiative started two years ago and the progress has been staggering. We work hand in hand with the Central Bank — we meet with them monthly to go through an agenda of how to bring the best use cases to market. When we sit with them, it feels more like speaking with a startup trying to make people's lives easier than a bureaucratic institution. Payments are now done — Ziina's one-tap payment is proof of that. What evolves next is data. You will be able to consolidate your financial data from different banks, with your permission, and use that to power everything from budgeting to better mortgages to loans.
You partnered with Lean Technologies on this infrastructure. What can a fintech do today that a bank cannot?
Banks are massive institutions with significant regulatory requirements — they house people's funds and carry enormous responsibility. Fintechs like Ziina are catalysts to the ecosystem. We are the layer on top of the banks that makes payments easier, data collection simpler, and spending smarter. Today, hundreds of thousands of businesses use the platform to collect payments from customers, save funds, and get recommendations on how to spend wisely. We aggregate and activate the infrastructure that the banks bring together.
It is 2026 — give me one thing coming for Ziina in the next few months that is going to be big.
Every business we speak to wants to strengthen its relationship with customers — build loyalty, understand behaviours, serve them better. What is coming with Ziina is that we are going to give businesses the tools and the data to understand their customers beyond payments. To get to know them and their lifestyle as well.
Thank you so much for joining us today, Faisal.
Thank you for having me. Great to be here.
