Middle East and Africa Mobile Payments Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends & Forecasts (2025 - 2030)

Middle East And Africa Mobile Payments Market Trends and Insights

GCC Wage-Protection-System (WPS) Mandates Accelerating Cash-to-Digital Migration

WPS compliance reached 99.8% in the UAE and 92% in Saudi Arabia in 2024, onboarding 5.8 million formerly cash-paid workers into digital channels.^{2White & Case LLP, “Unlocking Potential: GCC FinTech Trends, Regulations and Funding Outlook,” White & Case, whitecase.com} Mandatory wage digitisation funnels recurring salary inflows into mobile wallets, boosting average non-salary transaction frequency by 3.2 times for providers such as STC Pay. The programme is expanding across Bahrain, Qatar and Oman, standardising payroll rails and lowering customer-acquisition costs. Banks benefit from float balances while telco wallets monetise fees on remittances and bill-pay. The initiative embeds financial inclusion at scale, cementing long-term volume upside for the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market.

BNPL-Enabled Wallet Loyalty Programs Boosting Transaction Frequency in UAE & KSA

Tabby’s integration with STC Pay lifted wallet transaction frequency by 42% in 2024, underscoring BNPL’s ability to extend consumer credit within existing digital wallets.^{3Visa Inc., “Visa Tap to Phone Adoption Soars: 200% Year over Year Growth Worldwide,” Visa Newsroom, visa.com} BNPL adoption has reached 39% in the UAE and 42% in Saudi Arabia, driving USD 10 billion in annual wallet volumes and generating 2.7-times higher average ticket sizes versus traditional cards. Merchants gain higher conversion rates, consumers obtain deferred payments, and wallet operators capture interchange and late-fee income. Rapid scaling of BNPL-wallet hybrids is likely to deepen user stickiness and sharpen competitive differentiation in the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market.

Telco Super-App Race Unlocking Rural USSD Adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Orange’s Max it targets 45 million active users by 2025, leveraging USSD to reach low-end feature phones.^{4Jie Wang, “EM 2.0: A Road for the Digital Intelligent Transformation of African Carriers,” Huawei, huawei.com} Telebirr in Ethiopia already services 40 million users, processing USD 3 billion in monthly transactions—roughly 30% of national GDP. Super-app positioning lets telcos bundle payments, micro-credit and insurance, extracting multi-line revenue while lowering churn. USSD resilience in low-bandwidth regions broadens addressable volumes and entrenches telcos as dominant players across the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market.

SoftPOS Roll-outs Among Micro-Merchants (Visa Tap-to-Phone Pilots)

Visa’s Tap-to-Phone recorded 200% year-over-year global growth in 2025, with strong momentum in South Africa, Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia. Converting Android phones into acceptance devices slashes hardware costs and formalises previously cash-only merchants—30% of new users were entirely new to digital payments. The technology supports contactless consumer preferences (61% of shoppers now prefer tap-and-go), enhances data capture for loyalty programmes and accelerates merchant onboarding. Widescale SoftPOS uptake is expected to rebalance transaction mix toward proximity payments and expand addressable GDP for the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market.

Fragmented Licensing Across 45+ African Regulators Delays Market Entry

Payment providers allocate 18-24% of their operating budgets to compliance as they navigate divergent licence classes and fee structures. Approval timelines range from three months to over one year, dampening time-to-market for cross-border propositions. Activity-based licensing models in Kenya and Ghana offer promising templates, but broad harmonisation remains a long-term agenda. The resulting friction restricts capital inflows, stifles innovation and clips growth for the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market.

Mobile-Money Transaction Caps in Nigeria & Egypt Reduce Ticket Size

Tiered KYC ceilings in Nigeria cap daily wallet transfers at NGN 5 million (USD 3,275), while Egypt enforces similar ceilings to curb money-laundering risk. Consequently, average mobile-money ticket sizes remain 62% lower than bank transfers, forcing providers to prioritise frequency over value. Although regulators aim to safeguard stability, the caps limit use cases such as B2B settlements and large remittances, tempering overall wallet revenue in the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market.

Segment Analysis

By Payment Type: Proximity Surge Reshapes Transaction Landscape

Remote payments accounted for 69% of the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market in 2024, driven by bill-pay and e-commerce transfers. Visa’s Tap-to-Phone and widespread NFC handsets are now nudging proximity adoption upward with a projected 31.3% CAGR, especially in GCC urban centres where contactless initiatives led to a 47% uptick in 2024. Retailers gain higher throughput at checkout, while consumers benefit from tap-and-go convenience. Transaction data mined from proximity events enables hyper-local offers, boosting merchant sales and deepening ecosystem engagement.

The rapid diffusion of SoftPOS among micro-merchants lowers acceptance costs and targets previously cash-only outlets, expanding addressable volumes for the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market. Proximity payments also facilitate offline authentication, a vital feature in intermittent-connectivity environments. As infrastructure scales, the proximity share is expected to close the gap with remote transactions, shifting provider focus toward in-store experiences and embedded commerce offerings.  

By Transaction Type: P2P Growth Drives Financial Inclusion

POS transactions led with a 41% share in 2024, reflecting high smartphone penetration and merchant digitisation across GCC states. P2P transfers, however, are projected to outpace other flows at a 33.5% CAGR, buoyed by remittance needs and limited branch networks. First-time mobile money users in Africa initiate 78% of their journeys through P2P, making it a critical acquisition funnel for the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market size.

International mobile-money remittances reached USD 34 billion in 2024. Providers are layering value-added services such as savings pots, micro-loans and insurance to monetise rising wallet balances. As regulators progress toward real-time-gross settlement interoperability, P2P corridors will deepen liquidity and reinforce the ecosystem’s role in economic integration.

By Application: Government Sector Emerges as Growth Engine

Retail & e-commerce captured 46% of the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market in 2024, fuelled by mobile-first checkout journeys and QR-enabled pop-up stores. Seamless purchasing improves conversion rates and basket sizes, compelling merchants to integrate multiple wallet options.  

Public-sector adoption is accelerating at a 42.1% CAGR as digital identities and e-government portals gain traction under Saudi Vision 2030 and UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025. Digital disbursement of subsidies, fines and licence fees anchors volumes, lowers cash-handling costs and enhances transparency. Large-scale use cases catalyse ecosystem effects, bringing under-banked citizens into repeated digital interactions and expanding the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market.

Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By End-user: Business Segment Accelerates Digital Transformation

Personal wallets held a commanding 78% share in 2024, underscoring the pivotal role of mobile money in everyday financial lives. This dominance stems from salary deposits, bill payments and small-value retail transactions that together form the backbone of the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market share.

Business usage is forecast to expand at a 29.6% CAGR as enterprises digitise supplier settlements, payroll and B2B marketplaces. In Uganda, mobile-money transaction value exceeded UGX 100 trillion (USD 26 billion) in 2023. Digital workflows streamline reconciliation and improve liquidity, while higher transaction limits and API connectivity unlock embedded-finance propositions tailored for SMEs.  

Geography Analysis

Africa held 57% of the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market in 2024, anchored by Kenya’s mobile-money transactions that equalled 59% of national GDP. Sub-Saharan smartphone adoption is expected to reach 44% by 2025, expanding the addressable base for USSD and app-based wallets. Despite chronic infrastructure gaps, telco innovation around offline authentication mitigates session failures caused by rural latency of 250 ms, which drives an 18% USSD drop-off rate.

The Middle East is on a faster growth curve with a projected 41.2% CAGR through 2030. Saudi Arabia’s target of 70% cashless transactions by 2025 and the UAE’s cash share already down to 17% of POS in 2023 illustrate the policy-led pivot toward digital money. Real-time payment systems processed USD 230 billion in 2023 and are forecast to surpass USD 903 billion by 2028 across the six GCC states.

Cross-regional wallet-to-wallet remittance corridors connect GCC migrant wage earners with African recipients, trimming fees and accelerating settlement. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System is a potential game-changer, though funding gaps are delaying its rollout in Francophone blocs. These converging factors suggest a complementary rather than competitive dynamic, with Africa’s user scale and the Middle East’s infrastructure sophistication jointly propelling the Middle East and Africa mobile payments market.