Dubai fintech Jingle Pay to launch digital banking in UAE

Written by Ruby Hinchliffe
28th May 2020

Jingle Pay, a Dubai-based digital banking fintech, is launching in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) later this year.

The start-up is in the process of applying for licences in the UAE, Indonesia and the Philippines, though currently none of these countries’ regulations allow fintechs to become fully fledged banks.

Jingle Pay says it combines social payments with mobile wallets which are backed by cash accounts

With plans to eventually launch across much of the Middle East, Jingle Pay says it wants to tap the millennial and Gen Z consumer brands, which it believes want “responsive services, extremely low transfer fees, transparency and no restrictions such as minimum balance requirements”.

Founded by ex-hedge fund managers Amir Fardghassemi and Nadeem Hussein, founder of Pakistan’s microfinance provider Telenor Bank, and mobile wallet EasyPaisa, Jingle Pay already has some experience in tackling the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Jingle Pay says it combines social payments with mobile wallets which are backed by cash accounts.

“We’re seeing tremendous demand for a new way of offering banking services in the Middle East,” says Fardghassemi.

“Bricks and mortar banks don’t have the immediacy of response that a new generation of always-connected consumers want. And though we’re seeing conventional banks move to digital, there are gaps in user-friendliness and joyful engagement that we want to address.”

Jingle Pay has digitised the onboarding process to cover more than 7,600 government IDs in 160 countries, so identification can include passports, residency permits, Emirates ID and UAE driver licenses.

Branding itself the ‘Super App Neo Bank’, the fintech will offer a multi-currency account and card, remittance, ‘nano financing’, and “free” money transfer services, as well as “other value-added services” yet to be released.

Fellow Middle East-based fintechs have begun to gain momentum across the region in the last few months. Pakistan-based digital wallet SadaPay launched its contactless cards with Mastercard, open banking fintech Dapi launched in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Dubai-based peer-to-peer payments app Zina launched its app following a small funding round.