What are the best payment apps in the UAE?

Jatin Gupta laughs at the memory of transferring money to India just a few years ago. He remembers how he would first withdraw cash from an ATM, then join a queue at an exchange house at a mall in Doha, where he worked at the time.

There, he would fill out a form, present his identification documents, discuss exchange rates with the cashier and hand over his precious riyals, plus an extra transfer fee. A couple of stressful days followed until the money was credited to his account in India.

“Now, I just use my bank’s app and the money is credited at the other end within a few seconds,” Mr Gupta says.

Mr Gupta now lives in Dubai and works within the financial services industry. In his experience, exchange houses often have better rates than banks – and these are often negotiable, depending on the amount being transferred.

“With the bank app, I may receive a slightly lower exchange rate and have to accept the price offered, but the convenience is worth the difference.”

Speed and accessibility may be behind the expanding market for payment apps – although, as with all things digital, coronavirus-related movement restrictions and safety concerns have accelerated the trend.

In total, finance apps have been downloaded a 4.7 billion times between the first quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2021, according to a June report by marketing analytics platform AppsFlyer.

Finance app downloads in the UAE increased 55 per cent over the first three months of 2021, compared with same period in 2020, while downloads in Saudi Arabia rose 73 per cent. Payment, banking and investment apps have led the trend.

“There has been an overwhelming response to financial applications since the pandemic,” says Sagar Chandiramani, chief growth officer at WorkerAppz, an international remittance and payments platform aimed at businesses and individual customers around the world.

The Canada-licensed start-up, founded by long-time remittance professionals from the UAE, has a network covering more than 100 countries. The platform is currently available to business customers in Bahrain, Jordan, Europe and the Far East, and is expected to be available to consumers in the UAE by the end of the year, Mr Chandiramani says.

“Activity within the sector has been driven by the high valuations that FinTechs command, so you have a wide range of entrepreneurs entering the market, from industry veterans such as ourselves to people looking to take advantage of the wave,” he says.

“Regulators in the UAE have, rightly, been very careful to issue licences.”

Across the region, whether it is remittances or investments, new apps are appearing in online marketplaces on a regular basis – each with a specific value proposition. Some, such as Rise, YAP and NOW Money, partner with existing banks to offer specific services. Others aim to build all-digital banks, such as the UAE's Zand, which was launched this year and caters to retail and corporate clients.

While banking apps may offer the safety of an established brand, consumers must stay alert to security and privacy features before sending any money via an app.

“Whether financial or other consumer apps are running on a mobile smartphone or on your laptop computer, there are inherent privacy and security risks when conducting online transactions,” says Mark Pelkoski, vice president of sales engineering at Virsec, a software security company protecting enterprise applications from cyber attacks.

Credentials theft is one of the most common cyber crimes, where an attacker steals usernames and passwords and sells them on to scammers. Clicking a malicious link within an app or website can infect your system and capture everything you have been doing, from email to financial transactions, he says.

Users can protect their privacy and security with basic steps such as using complex passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, only downloading apps from verified app stores, and making use of antivirus software.

Although the UAE FinTech market is still maturing, here are some of best payment apps available in the UAE app stores to help you make transfers, split bills or pay for government services.

Apps for local money transfers

The UAE does not yet have a widely used peer-to-peer, or P2P, payment app, such as Venmo in the US or Tikkie in the Netherlands. Several start-ups have been launched within the country, with varying levels of operations – partly as they wait to comply with local regulations.

One of the furthest along is Mamo, which was granted an Innovation Testing Licence to operate under specific conditions from the Dubai International Financial Centre in July.

However, the best app for local money transfers remains your bank. Most local banks in the UAE – and across the region – offer transfers within the country, although there are a few late adopters.

Fees are generally Dh1 per transaction, depending on the type of account. It is worth evaluating the pros and cons before picking a bank.

Emirates NBD’s mePay service, for instance, has enabled customers to make local transfers to anyone in the UAE using only the recipient’s mobile number since 2016. Mashreq, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and First Abu Dhabi Bank offer similar services, but not all UAE banks have the same level of online banking amenities.

Apps for international money transfers

Opinions were split when The National asked UAE residents which apps they prefer to use when sending money abroad. Several residents use their bank’s mobile app because of corresponding banking relationships in other countries, particularly India, and for the sheer convenience of having everything in one place.

UAE banks generally charge from Dh25 a transfer but the exchange rate offered to you in the app could differ from live market rates by Dh10 or more.

However, when sending money to India, for example, exchange rate differences can result in beneficiaries losing up to Rs200 ($2.74) or more, one Dubai resident told The National.

In terms of privacy and security, banks are considered to be the safest option – but a well-known brand is also a target for cyber criminals.

One of the most popular third-party apps is Wise, formerly known as TransferWise. Launched in 2010, the UK-based FinTech offers 1,600 currency rates to a user base of more than 7 million and processes more than $5 billion in customer payments each month.

The app has a digital wallet feature that allows you to hold different currencies and convert them when it is convenient or when rates are low. The app usually aligns with live exchange rates.

However, as of December last year, UAE residents can only make Wise transfers from debit or credit cards, adding an extra 2.5 per cent to 4 per cent in transaction fees.

Apps from exchange houses form a third category of transfer solutions. Several UAE brands, such as Al Ansari Exchange and MoneyGram, offer instant money transfers across the globe using wire operators such as Western Union.

When we considered sending Dh1,000 to France on a few different apps, the total amount payable differed from the live exchange rate by up to Dh8.66. Fees range from Dh15 to Dh20, but factor in the exchange rate difference and you could see a difference of Dh70 on a ticket size of Dh1,000.