Ziina

Ziina is a Dubai-based financial platform serving consumers and businesses in the United Arab Emirates. It began as a peer-to-peer payment app for splitting bills and sending money between individuals, and expanded into two segments: Ziina Personal, which lets users send and receive money from a wallet, add notes, GIFs or photos to transfers, accept cards and Apple Pay via QR codes and links, and cash out to a UAE bank account; and Ziina Business, which lets merchants collect payments through payment links, an online payment gateway, QR codes, an API, in-chat payments through ZiiBoard, and Tap to Pay contactless acceptance on iPhone and Android.

Business-side features include invoicing, multi-currency payment links in up to 10 currencies for a 1.5% surcharge, CRM-style collection of customer data, in-app analytics and CSV exports, team accounts with permissions, and integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce. The platform accepts Visa, Mastercard and American Express as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay. Ziina is licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE and describes its technology as PCI-DSS certified, with biometric and PIN verification. Following its Stored Value Facility licence, the company has been extending beyond payments into broader financial services, including a card product (ZiiCard) for expense management and, later, a Visa digital card and the Violet membership offering brand benefits and zero currency fees.

Founding story

Ziina was founded by CEO Faisal Toukan with Sarah Toukan, its Chief Product Officer, and Andrew Gold. Gold began his career as an engineer on Apple's iOS Safari team, then joined Distributed Systems, later acquired by Coinbase, where he worked on the Coinbase Wallet app before relocating from San Francisco to Dubai to found the company. Sarah Toukan holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford and had worked in fintech in the UAE, proptech in London and autonomous vehicles in Silicon Valley. The idea evolved from a bill-splitting app after retail users who ran businesses began using the wallet to collect payments.

Business model

Ziina charges transaction-based fees rather than subscriptions or setup fees: 2.6% plus 1 AED per payment link and POS transaction and 2.9% plus 1 AED per payment gateway transaction, with an additional 1.5% for international cards and a 1.5% surcharge on multi-currency links. Bank cash-outs carry no Ziina transfer fee. Its Stored Value Facility licence also allows it to earn revenue from float on customer balances held on the platform.

Payment processing fees on merchant transactions (percentage plus fixed AED component), surcharges on international and multi-currency payments, and float income on stored customer balances.

Traction

By September 2024 Ziina reported 50,000 active retail and business customers, roughly 34% month-over-month customer growth and about a ten-fold revenue increase over the prior year. It said it was processing about 1,050 dirhams (~$280) every 60 seconds and was on track for 1.1 billion dirhams (~$300 million) in annualized transaction volume, up from 550 million dirhams (~$150 million) the previous year. Its website later cited more than 10,000 UAE businesses using the platform.

Latest developments

Recent announcements listed by the company include a partnership with Lean for live Open Finance payments (January 2025), the launch of Tap to Pay for in-person acceptance (April 2025), a partnership with Dubai CommerCity (July 2025), a Visa-issued digital card for instant payments (October 2025), the Violet lifestyle membership with zero currency fees (January 2026) and a partnership with business setup firm Virtuzone (March 2026).