News

Paymob Partners With Tamara For Seamless BNPL Payments

The partnership is designed to fuel the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises across the MENA region.

Published

3 years ago

January 9, 2024

Nour Nasir

Paymob

Leading MENA financial services enabler, Paymob has announced a new partnership with Tamara, the GCC region’s premier shopping and payments platform.

The strategic venture integrates Tamara’s Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) service with Paymob’s secure payment gateway, allowing customers to split payments without hidden fees or interest. Paymob’s infrastructure is already used by 250,000 merchants across the MENA region and Pakistan, while Tamara boasts over nine million registered users and 30,000+ merchants.

Although the two companies already have partnerships with some of the region’s best-known brands, the new agreement is designed to fuel the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises. With Tamara’s BNPL solution, merchants typically improve conversions by 15% and gain a 40% increase in average order value. In addition, the likelihood of a customer making repeat purchases climbs by 50%.

The integration of Tamara’s BNPL solution to Paymob’s eCommerce gateway works via a simple software upgrade. The service will initially roll out to merchants in the KSA and UAE in its first phase, with more countries added in future stages.

Islam Shawky, Co-founder and CEO of Paymob explained that “[the] partnership with Tamara delivers on Paymob’s mission to fuel SME growth in the digital economy. There is a massive opportunity to enable merchants in the GCC to capitalize on the power of alternative payment methods, and we are thrilled to partner with Tamara to fuel this growth in MENA”.

Also Read: A Guide To Digital Payment Methods In The Middle East

Turki Bin Zarah, Co-founder and CCO of Tamara, added, “This partnership with Paymob provides seamless access to Tamara’s services to thousands of SMEs to enable their growth across the region. As a leading commerce enabler, we are revolutionizing how people shop, pay, and bank and are thrilled to partner with Paymob as we deliver on this goal”.

Tamara and Paymob are currently experiencing rapid growth after recent funding rounds. Riyadh-based Tamara secured a $150 million investment from Goldman Sachs, while Paymob’s growth has been driven by funding from PayPal Ventures.

News

Samsung And Spotify Offer Free Premium Deal In MENA

Nearly seven in ten streams in the region come from 18-to-34-year-olds — the audience Samsung is hoping to entice into its ecosystem.

Published

5 days ago

August 7, 2026

Nour Nasir

Samsung

Samsung has announced a partnership with Spotify spanning the Middle East, North Africa, and Türkiye, bundling Spotify Premium with select devices across its ecosystem. The headline offer — up to four months of Premium for free — is a first for the region.

Customers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Türkiye who buy any OLED or 98-inch television, or any Galaxy S or Z series mobile device, get four months of Spotify Premium. The offer, tiered by market and device, is available at retail and on Samsung.com, and redeemed through the Samsung Promotion and Samsung Members apps.

For Samsung, the strategy is less about free music than about lock-in. The Korean tech giant’s pitch is continuity: a track starts on a Galaxy smartphone through Galaxy Buds on the commute, moves to a Samsung TV and soundbar in the living room, and stays controllable from a Galaxy Watch. The more seamlessly music travels between those devices, the harder it becomes to swap any one of them for a rival’s.

“Technology should bring people closer to the things they love, and few things connect people the way music does,” said Omar Saheb, Regional VP of Marketing and Online Business at Samsung Electronics MENA. The partnership, he added, gives customers “a genuine reason to choose Samsung for the experience, not only the product”.

Also Read: Shokz OpenFit Pro Review: Open-Ear Audio Finally Grows Up

For subscribers, Premium brings the usual package: ad-free listening, offline downloads, richer audio quality on Galaxy Buds and Samsung sound devices, and Jam, which lets friends build a shared queue.

“At Spotify, we are always working to make every listening moment feel more personal, meaningful, and worth it,” said Rami Jamal, Head of Partnerships at Spotify for South Asia, Middle East, and Africa.

The demographics go a long way to explaining the strategy. Across MENA, Türkiye, and Pakistan, nearly seven in ten Spotify streams come from listeners aged 18 to 34, according to the company — precisely the audience Samsung wants inside its hardware ecosystem before buying habits harden.