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PayPal Links With NEO PAY To Power UAE E-Commerce
New integration lets UAE merchants accept PayPal at checkout, cutting friction for SMEs selling to customers abroad.
PayPal has struck a partnership with UAE acquirer NEO PAY to let local merchants accept PayPal payments, giving businesses a faster route to overseas customers and cross-border sales.
The deal connects PayPal directly to NEO PAY’s acquiring infrastructure, allowing online sellers to switch on PayPal at checkout without separate integrations or complex onboarding. For smaller merchants, that removes a common barrier to selling internationally: access to a payment method foreign shoppers already recognize.
The timing is deliberate. The UAE’s e-commerce market is projected to reach $21.18 billion by 2030, according to Mordor Intelligence, as online retail and digital services continue to outpace traditional channels. SMEs — about 94% of all businesses in the country and more than half of GDP — account for much of that activity, yet often lack the tools to handle cross-border payments at scale.
For PayPal, the agreement extends its footprint in the Middle East and Africa through a local partner rather than a standalone build-out. “Deepening our presence through this partnership with NEO PAY is a critical step in our regional growth strategy,” said Otto Williams, Senior Vice President, Regional Head and General Manager, Middle East and Africa, at PayPal. “By integrating PayPal, merchants, especially SMEs, can better serve today’s digital-first consumers and scale with confidence”.
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NEO PAY, which focuses on digital acquiring for e-commerce merchants, is positioning the tie-up as a way to broaden payment choice while keeping operations simple. “This partnership allows us to provide secure, trusted, and globally recognized payment options — enhancing the checkout experience and supporting our merchants’ growth across borders,” said Vibhor Mundhada, CEO of NEO PAY.
The move reflects a wider shift in the Gulf’s payments stack. Local processors are increasingly acting as gateways to global wallets and networks, a model that fits the UAE’s push to grow exports, support SMEs and cement its role as a regional digital commerce hub. For merchants, it’s straightforward: fewer hoops at checkout, more reach beyond the country’s borders.
News
Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict
Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.
Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.
“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.
The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.
The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.
Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.
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The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.
So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.
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